“What is all this?” he asked, nodding around the room.
“It’s my mom’s. It was my mom’s space. She loved to make things. My dad told me it started out with a few toys, and then some clothes, and then, she was making clothes, badly, he said. She didn’t have a whole lot of time to get good, before she … passed.”
“And you sew?”
“Most of my life. Since I was a kid. Dad always thought he would have to turn this room into something else, but he could never bring himself to get rid of another memory of his … of my mom.”
“So, you use it?” he asked.
“I like it here. It has some of her old notions. Her sewing machine.” Alex smiled, touching the white machine in front of her. “And it has something she was working on as well.” She pointed toward the dress form. “I think it was a dress, or possibly a skirt. She had these big ideas, and she sketched a lot of them down.”
Alex moved from her position at the table to the small bookshelf that only had a handful of books, but was empty.
She grabbed a sketchbook and opened it up at a random page. “See.”
Roman looked at the sketchbook, not really sure why he was entertaining this idea for Alex. This was boring, woman’s stuff to him, but he also couldn’t help but enjoy the light he saw shining in her eyes. She looked so happy. He couldn’t remember her ever seeming so happy with him, or at their wedding. She’d been cold, but so had the service.
“You hate this. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to bore you.” She snapped the book closed.
“How did I not know about this?” he asked, pointing at the room.
“What was there to know?”
“You have never asked for one of these.”
She shrugged. “It’s your home and your apartment. You never wanted to know, and you told me to leave your place as it was. That it was perfectly functional.”
“What have you been doing the past couple of months?” he asked.
“Reading.” She moved back behind her machine. “A lot of reading. Watching some television.”
“But do you want one of these at our place?”
“Our place?”
“Alex, we are married.”
“We don’t have to be,” Alex said. “All you have to do is say the words, and we can get our marriage annulled. I even looked into it. If neither of us contests it, we can have it done so fast. You can go back to your old life, and I can go back to mine.”
“Is being married to me really so bad?”
“You don’t want to be married to me, and besides, didn’t you once tell me I wasn’t good enough for you? That women in your world were far better and didn’t allow other men to touch them?” she asked.
He’d said those things to her. Roman hadn’t been the best role model when it came to being a good husband. He sucked at it.
“We’re not getting this marriage annulled, Alex.”
She pressed her lips together. “Okay.”
“Do you want a sewing room?” he asked.
“No, it’s fine.”
What game was she playing with him?