Chapter 3: You Chose Her

Seven days after I moved to Milwaukee, I got a call from an unfamiliar number.

I had just finished unpacking the last box. My tools were still stacked by the window.

“Hello?”

There was a two-second pause.

“Elise. It’s me.”

Noah.

His voice was tired, but it was still instantly recognizable.

I held the phone to my ear and said nothing.

He seemed to take my silence as permission to continue. “The water heater at the lake house is broken. What was the name of that repair guy you used to use? Do you still have his number?”

He said it so naturally, as if no time had passed at all. There had been countless mornings just like this one.

“Elise, the garage door won’t open.”

“Elise, is the credit card bill due?”

“Elise, the fridge is making a weird noise. Can you call someone?”

And every time, I would stop whatever I was doing to check due dates, schedule repairs, compare quotes, and send him the answer. Back then, I thought that was what building a life together looked like. Now I knew he’d just gotten used to having someone clean up his messes.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Noah, I’m not handling the lake house anymore.”

“How could you not know?” Irritation sharpened his voice. “That guy came out twice. You were the one who said his rates were good. You have to have his number saved somewhere.”

“I deleted it.”

A heavy sigh crackled through the line. “What about the maintenance records? Claire went through every drawer in the study and couldn’t find a thing. The water heater just keeps leaking. The whole basement floor is soaked.”

I didn’t respond.

But Noah seemed to have finally found an outlet for his frustration, and his voice grew more agitated with every word. “She doesn’t even know where the main water shutoff is, and we can’t find any of the utility bills. The electric company sent another overdue notice yesterday, and she just said you always handled that stuff before.”

He took a breath. “The wedding vendors are also asking for the remaining balances. Diane said the contracts were all canceled, but Claire doesn’t even know who we need to rebook.” His voice hitched. “The whole house is a complete mess.”

He sounded genuinely aggrieved, as if all these problems had appeared out of thin air. As if he and Claire hadn’t stolen my life, only for me to stop carrying the weight of it.

I looked down at the open box by my feet. Inside were a new ledger, a measuring tape, and a set of restoration tools. Every item belonged only to me. I didn’t have to explain to anyone what they were for.

“Noah, is that why you called?”

He went quiet for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice had softened. “Not entirely.” A pause. “Elise, I just… I really miss you.”

I let out a short, sharp laugh.

He rushed on. “I’ve been thinking about us a lot these past few days. We had something real, didn’t we? The thing with Claire… it all happened so fast. It was just a moment of weakness.”

“A moment of weakness?” My voice turned to ice. “Sleeping with her was a moment of weakness? Getting her pregnant was a moment of weakness? Kissing her in front of everyone, taking my wedding and my house for yourselves—was that a moment of weakness, too?”

I didn’t wait for an answer. “Noah, do you miss me, or do you miss having someone who automatically pays your bills, calls your repairmen, and makes sure you never have to think about a single damn thing?”

He fell silent.

Then, through the phone, I heard Claire scream. “Noah! The pipe burst! Come quick!”

There was a burst of frantic footsteps, followed by the dull crash of something heavy hitting the floor.

Noah raised his voice. “Turn off the valve first!”

“I don’t know where it is!” Claire cried. “There’s water everywhere—just get in here!”

I asked calmly, “Do you think she really can’t handle it, or does she just know you’ll always handle it for her?”

Noah’s breathing caught. “She’s pregnant. A lot of things are hard for her right now.” This time, he didn’t even hesitate before making an excuse for her.

From farther away, Claire shouted his name again.

Noah spoke hurriedly into the phone. “Elise, just help me out this one time. Find that repairman’s number, or at least tell me where the main water shutoff is. For the sake of what we had.”

For the sake of what we had. He was trying to trade seven years of our life together for a plumber’s contact information.

I cut him off. “Noah, you chose her. You didn’t choose the instruction manual for her life.”

The line went completely silent.

“Don’t call me again.”

I hung up and blocked the number.

Outside my window was an unfamiliar street. A city bus rolled slowly through the intersection below. The glass door of the coffee shop on the corner swung open, and the sound of laughter drifted up on the wind.

In this city, no one knew I was the Morgans’ adopted daughter. No one knew whose bills I had paid, whose house I had repaired, or how many disasters I had cleaned up.

Everything was new.

And my life had already turned the page.