My Husband Could Solve Every Problem Except the One Between Us
Instead, Jonah said, “I’m going to check the rollers.”
Talia nodded. “I’ll call the client.”
They worked side by side without touching.
By seven, they had a revised plan. By nine, they had secured help from a printer across town. By ten, the job was no longer in danger.
Their part-time assistant, Dev, watched them from the front counter.
“You two are incredible,” he said.
Talia smiled automatically.
Jonah looked at her.
The compliment sat between them, bright and useless.
After Dev left, Talia locked the front door.
“We are incredible at this,” Jonah said.
“Yes.”
“It doesn’t mean we’re okay.”
“No.”
He leaned against the counter. “I’m trying to stop pretending those are the same thing.”
That mattered more than she expected.
A minute later, Jonah reached toward her shoulder, then stopped.
“Can I?”
Talia glanced at the ink on her sleeve. “Not right now.”
“Okay.”
He lowered his hand.
She waited for him to retreat emotionally. He did not. He stayed where he was, close enough to be present and far enough not to make her answer for his disappointment.
“Thank you,” she said.
His expression tightened. “You don’t have to thank me for respecting no.”
“I’m not thanking you for respecting no. I’m thanking you for staying here after I said it.”
He nodded slowly.
It was not a kiss. It was not desire restored. It was not even proof that they would survive.
But it was a different kind of moment than they had been having.
***
A few nights later, Talia asked Jonah to eat dinner with her on the back steps.
Not a date. Not an anniversary replacement. There would be no candles, no playlist, no attempt to make the evening significant.
She brought two bowls of soup outside. Jonah brought bread.
For a while, they listened to the neighborhood settle around them.
Then he said, “My father used to fix things instead of apologizing.”
Talia turned toward him.
“If he missed a birthday, he’d show up with a repaired radio. If he lied, he’d replace the broken lock. My mother would accept the repair because it was easier than asking him to say he was sorry.”
“What happened to them?”
“He left when I was fourteen. Came back twice. Both times with tools.”
Talia looked down at her soup.
“I learned that being useful made people less likely to leave,” Jonah said. “Not because it worked. Because I didn’t know what else to do.”
She wanted to tell him that he had never needed to earn his place with her. But the sentence felt too easy, too much like a reassurance that would close the subject.
Instead, she said, “My parents never fought.”
“That sounds peaceful.”
“They were polite. My mother knew my father’s schedule, his prescriptions, his tax passwords. She packed his lunches until the week he moved out. They were kind to each other right up to the end.”
Jonah studied her face.
“I was terrified of becoming them,” she said. “So when you started doing all those things for me, I loved it. Then I got scared that the things were all we had.”
“You could have told me.”
“I thought you would notice.”
“I noticed you were tired.”
“That’s not the same.”
“No.”
The word held no defense.
Talia placed her bowl on the step. “I kept waiting for you to prove I mattered without me having to ask. And when you didn’t, I treated that as proof you didn’t want to.”
Jonah rubbed his palms together.
“I kept waiting for you to want me without making me risk hearing no,” he said. “That was never going to happen.”
They sat with the uncomfortable fairness of it.
After a while, Jonah said, “I want to kiss you.”
Talia’s body responded before her mind did, a quick warmth followed by caution.
“Are you asking?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to be hurt if I say no?”
“Yes,” he said. “But I’m not going to make that your problem.”
She looked at him for a long time.
“Not tonight,” she said.
His jaw flexed once.
“Okay.”
“And don’t say it like you’re being noble.”
“I’m not.”
“You sound noble.”
“I’m trying not to sound like I’m dying.”
That startled a laugh out of her.
The laugh was small and inconvenient. It did not repair anything. It made space for the possibility that not every honest moment had to hurt.
***
In the fourth week, Talia viewed an apartment.
It was a small second-floor place above a bakery, with crooked floors and a kitchen barely large enough for one person to turn around in. The bedroom window looked onto a brick wall. The landlord apologized for the lack of storage.
Talia loved the sunlight.
She hated that she loved it.
When she told Jonah, he was standing at the cutting table, counting envelopes.
He put the envelopes down.
“Do you want me to ask how it went?” he said.
“Yes.”
“How did it go?”
“It was small. The floors are terrible. There’s no room for a dining table.”
“Did you like it?”
“Yes.”
Jonah nodded, as if she had given him a business update.
Talia felt disappointment bloom.
“What are you going to do with that information?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“You’re not going to tell me not to go?”
“No.”
“You’re not going to ask whether I’m sure?”
“No.”
“You’re not going to make a spreadsheet comparing rent to our mortgage?”
His mouth twitched, but he did not smile. “I thought about it.”
She looked away.
Jonah came around the table. “I hate that you can picture living somewhere else.”
Talia looked back at him.
“I hate that I can picture it too,” he said. “But I don’t want to become another reason you stay because leaving me would be difficult.”
The sentence went through her more deeply than any plea could have.
They met the landlord for the shop lease the following week. Mrs. Alvarez had owned the building since before either of them was born. She knew them as a pair and addressed questions to both of them automatically.
“Five years again?” she asked.
Talia felt Jonah glance at her.
“We’re not ready to sign five years,” she said.
Mrs. Alvarez did not ask why. She simply said there was a one-year option with a buyout clause, though the rent would be higher.
Jonah asked for the paperwork.
Talia touched his wrist before he could reach for it.
“Let’s take it home,” she said.
He looked at her hand on him.
“Okay.”
She let go.
It was a practical conversation. It was also the first business decision they had made without allowing the business to decide for them.
***
At their third session with Dr. Sethi, the question was no longer whether they were lonely.
They were.
The question was what they were willing to change.
Jonah said he wanted to separate the shop from their marriage. They would create clearer roles, hire more help, and sign only a one-year lease. If they separated, either one could buy the other out without using the business as leverage.