**Part 3**
Nathan left for Seattle two weeks later.
Susan went too.
Yes, they lived in the same company housing complex.
And yes, sometimes that still bothered me.
But strangely, Susan was no longer the person I worried about.
Nathan began calling me before decisions instead of afterward.
Sometimes those conversations were uncomfortable.
Sometimes we argued.
But at least we were arguing while choices were still choices.
Three months into the project, Bennett told Nathan that a permanent Seattle team was officially being considered.
Nathan called me that night.
He sounded nervous.
“Bennett asked whether I would be interested in leading it.”
My grip tightened around the phone.
“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing.”
I waited.
Then Nathan continued.
“I told him I needed to talk to my wife first.”
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
That sentence didn’t erase everything.
It didn’t undo the dinner.
It didn’t erase the secrets.
It didn’t change the fact that another woman had once known more about my husband’s future than I did.
But for the first time, I understood the difference between an apology and actual change.
That night at dinner, I had been terrified that Susan might take my husband away from me.
Eventually, I realized she had never been the greatest threat to our marriage.
The real danger was Nathan believing marriage meant informing me about his future only after he had already decided what he wanted.
If our marriage was going to survive, that had to change.
Not after the next major decision.
Before it.
