Chapter 363

[ 1,208 words ]

Katia’s POV

Julian came back from the office a little after six, and by the time he walked into the dining room, the table was already set, Aiden seated in his usual spot with his napkin tucked into his collar the way he insisted on doing himself even though it never stayed there past the first course.

Julian sat down across from me without a word.

We ate in silence for a while, the kind of silence that had become familiar over the past few days, not hostile exactly, just careful, both of us navigating something we had not yet found language for in front of our son.

Aiden set his fork down.

“Mom. Dad,” he said. “Why do you guys sleep in separate rooms p>

I froze with my glass halfway to my mouth.

“My friend Marcus told me that when people are married they sleep in the same room,” Aiden continued, entirely unaware of the silence that had fallen over the table. “You are my mom and he is my dad. Why do you use different rooms p>

I looked at Julian.

Julian looked at me.

Neither of us said anything for a long moment, the kind of pause that stretched just long enough to become its own answer, and Aiden’s eyes moved between us, waiting, the patient expectant look of a child who had asked a perfectly reasonable question and did not understand why it had made both adults at the table go still.

“Daddy had a lot of work to do yesterday,” Julian said finally. “That is why he did not go to the master bedroom p>

Aiden considered this.

“You will go to the master bedroom today, right?” he asked.

My cheeks went hot. I could feel the heat crawling up my neck, and I focused very hard on my plate, on the careful arrangement of vegetables I had barely touched, anything that was not the sight of Julian across the table trying to figure out how to answer his son’s question without either lying to him or saying something that would get him thrown out of the guest room permanently.

Julian glanced at me.

I did not help him.

“Yes,” Julian said finally, his voice even, giving nothing away except the faint tightness around his jaw that told me exactly how carefully he was choosing every word. “I will sleep in the master bedroom today p>

Aiden nodded, satisfied, and picked his fork back up.

Then he looked at me again, tilting his head slightly the way he did when something else had caught his attention.

“Mommy,” he said, “why do you act like you want to strangle something when you look at Dad p>

Julian made a sound that was almost a laugh, quickly disguised as clearing his throat.

I reached for my glass of water.

“I think it is something I ate,” I said, keeping my voice as calm as I could manage. “Not sitting right with me p>

Aiden shrugged, apparently satisfied with that explanation too, and went back to his dinner, chattering a moment later about something unrelated, a classmate, or a game at recess, the conversation moving on without him the way children’s conversations always did, leaving the two adults at the table sitting in the wreckage of a question neither of us had been prepared to answer.

I did not look at Julian again for the rest of the meal.

I could feel him looking at me anyway.

The rest of dinner passed with Aiden carrying most of the conversation, describing a science project his class had started that week, something involving baking soda and vinegar and a volcano he had insisted on painting bright purple instead of the brown everyone else was using because he said volcanoes could be any color they wanted to be. Julian asked him questions at the right moments, nodding along, and I sat there picking at the food on my plate, aware of every glance that passed between them, aware of how normal it looked from the outside, a family having dinner, and how far from normal it actually felt sitting inside it.

When Aiden finished eating, he asked to be excused to go finish his volcano before bed, and I let him go, watching him disappear down the hallway with the easy energy of a child who had gotten exactly the answer he wanted and had already moved on to more important things.

The dining room went quiet.

Julian set his napkin down beside his plate.

“That was not how I expected to spend dinner,” he said.

“No,” I said.

“I did not lie to him,” Julian said carefully. “I told him I would sleep in the master bedroom today. I did not actually confirm anything beyond that p>

“I noticed,” I said.

“I am not trying to push anything,” he said. “I want to be clear about that. If you want me to correct it with him later, tell him something changed, I will do that. I do not want him thinking something is settled when it is not p>

I looked at him across the table at the careful way he was choosing his words, clearly trying to give me an easy way out of a promise he had made under pressure from our son who had no idea what he was actually asking.

“Do not correct it,” I said finally.

Julian looked at me, surprised.

“He does not need to know the details of what is or is not settled between us,” I said. “He needs to believe his parents are figuring this out, because we are, even if it is slower than either of us would like. I am not going to have him lying awake wondering why you suddenly are not in the master bedroom after you told him this morning that you would be p>

“So I am sleeping in the master bedroom tonight,” Julian said, his tone carefully neutral, though I could hear something underneath it that was not neutral at all.

“You are sleeping in the master bedroom tonight,” I said. “On the couch that is in the sitting area of the master bedroom. Which exists for exactly this kind of situation, though I admit I never expected to use it for this reason p>

Something shifted in Julian’s expression, somewhere between relief and disappointment, and he did not argue.

“Understood,” he said.

I stood up from the table and began gathering the plates, needing something to do with my hands, and Julian rose to help without being asked, the two of us moving around the kitchen in a silence that felt slightly less careful than the one we had carried through dinner, though I could not have said exactly why.

Upstairs, I could hear Aiden’s voice through the ceiling, narrating something to himself about his volcano, entirely unaware of the conversation he had just caused two grown adults to have in the dining room below him.

I set the last plate in the sink and looked at Julian, who was drying his hands on a towel, watching me with an expression I chose not to examine too closely.

“The couch,” I said again, in case he had gotten any ideas.

“The couch,” he agreed. “I heard you the first time p>

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