Julie sees her ex-husband again four years after he left, but this time she finds him in the worst place and with the worst woman she could ever meet.
Julia sees her ex-husband again four years after he left, but this time she doesn’t expect to and with the last woman she wants to see. What’s changed isn’t what really shocks me… It’s not what has. She has to decide what healing really means as old wounds come to the surface and new facts come to light.
I wasn’t ready to see my ex-husband at the shop. Not at all, not with a kid on his hip… not at all, not with two crying babies in a double stroller.
I also didn’t expect to hear him yelling about oat milk in the cereal aisle with her, the yoga teacher he left me for.
But there he was.
He messed up a child’s sock and said something about being more “mindful next time,” and for a split second I almost felt sorry for him.
Almost. Not quite, though.
I was Mark’s wife, cook, cheerleader, and unpaid doctor for 18 years. At one point, I was the only person who knew every side of him.
I was his best friend before all of that.
We met in college when we were both poor and living off of instant noodles. We both had big dreams. He had this movie-star quality that made even the most everyday things feel like something to remember. We’d run in the rain to catch the bus, make hot cocoa by candlelight, and talk about how we’d live our lives until dawn.
His faith in love was strong, and he was sure it could fix anything.
I thought it could for a long time. We built everything from the ground up together as kids: the house with the yellow doors, the dog that shed everywhere, and the two cute kids who made the whole place loud.
The soul of that house was Ryan and Emma. There were soccer cleats by the door, half-done school projects, and laughter bouncing down the hallway.
Mark was a great parent. He burned pancakes and told the kids they were “caramelized.” He helped Ryan build a papier-mâché volcano that blew up all over the kitchen floor. Even after Emma backed into the mailbox while learning to parallel park, he stayed up late to help her. Two times.
He’d smile and wink at me over her shoulder.
He would say, “She’ll get it in the end.” “I did.”
I was in charge of keeping things going. I planned ahead for parties and made sure everyone had food for school. It was clear which kid liked their crusts cut off and which one had to have fresh fruit with every meal. The doctors that took our insurance were known to me. I knew the difference between colored and white washing detergent, when each bill was due, and when Ryan’s allergy medicine stopped working.
We were moving opposites. That did work for a long time, though. I thought it did.
He called the next part of his life his “wellness phase.”
At first, it wasn’t dangerous. Mindfulness apps, breathing routines, and some saved videos about inner peace were all that was on my phone. As a joke, I even got him an eye pillow that smells like lavender for his birthday.
“Thank you, Jules,” he replied with a smile. “But you don’t really believe in this stuff, do you?”
“I believe in anything that makes you less of a grump on Mondays, honey.”
He laughed at first, but after a few weeks, he was cooking with sage and calling our coffee machine a “vibrational toxin.”
I didn’t fight back. I had heard that different people deal with middle age in different ways. People who watch healing subliminal videos on YouTube, prayer, and crystals may help my husband sleep. Who was I to stop him?
He changed, though.
Mark began to sleep in the spare room. He wrote in his journal more than he talked to me. He stopped pulling my hand away in the car. After that, one night while I was making our bed, he sat down across from me and gave me a serious look.
“Julia, honey, don’t take this the wrong way…” he told her. “But you’re grounded in too much negativity. It’s weighing you down.”
I remember looking at him for a long time before I spoke.
“Because I don’t want to spend $600 on a silent retreat, Mark?”
He didn’t answer. He just got up, kissed me on the forehead, and hummed as he left the room.
After a week, he met Amber.
She came into our lives when she was 31 years old. It looked like her legs went on forever, and her voice sounded like it was always in savasana. There was no weight to anything about her that was mentioned.
It was funny that she had a tattoo on her wrist that said “breathe” because she was the one who sucked all the air out of my marriage.
When Mark met her, she was in charge of a “healing circle.” It was told to me after he got home, when he looked like he had just finished a journey. His words were “expanding his spiritual bandwidth” and “feeling deeply seen.”
As I stood by the fridge with my arms crossed and a fake smile on my face, I pretended not to be worried about the state of my marriage.
After that, the texts came.
I saw the first one by chance. We were watching a movie with the kids when his phone went off.
“You energy feels so aligned when we’re together. And mine feels… electric.💫”
I didn’t say anything right away. I tried to tell myself that it wasn’t what I thought it meant. It was hard to figure out what the second one meant, though: your wife’s energy must be tiring.
That night, after the kids were asleep, I talked to him about it. I was putting away the dishes while Mark searched the couch for popcorn bits that had gotten lost. It didn’t surprise me that he didn’t do anything.
“She gets me, Julia,” he told her. “She helps me connect to the parts of myself you’ve always ignored. You see the world as being one dimensional. There’s so much more out there… and inside us too. Amber shows me that.”
“You’re mad that I didn’t pay attention to your inner child?” I asked, feeling both amused and scared.
He looked at me with sadness and said, “You never wanted to meet him. Never wanted to understand him.”
He wasn’t there after two weeks.
Nobody yelled at each other or gave long answers. On the kitchen counter, there was only his wedding ring and a folded note.
“I need someone who feeds my spirit.”
Being alive was all you did that first year. I learned how to do everything he used to do, like clearing out the sink and talking to insurance companies. The kids didn’t eat much of their dinner, and I cried softly into dish towels. Too many times, I looked at my phone, waiting for something that never came.
We went to therapy in the second year. Third, Mark forgot to call Ryan on his birthday, which led to separation.
I didn’t need him to show up for the fourth one because… Someone else had it.
That’s when I met Leo. Mark was anxious and moody all the time, but Leo was cool and patient, making everyone feel safe. He wasn’t required to be kind; he just was. First, my kids didn’t want to go, but when Leo showed that he wouldn’t take me away from them or try to be their father when he wasn’t there, they gave in.
We quickly got engaged, and I let myself imagine a future that wasn’t just about getting better and staying alive, but also about starting over.
Leo can read the room like it’s a love language. He always knows when to talk, hug me, or just be close. When you’re a Leo, love doesn’t come with fireworks. When it comes, it brings chocolate, laughter, and sticking together.
Then I saw him last weekend.
Mark was in the cereal area. He was pushing a stroller and holding a toddler. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a year.
Amber was yelling about oat milk behind him.
She was no longer shining. Her bun was coming apart, her tights were dirty, and her voice was no longer that floaty, lavender-oil soft. It was now as smooth as glass through the air.
It was too loud for her to whisper, but she snapped, “Mark, I told you we only buy organic! How can you forget that?! ”
A few people shopping nearby stopped to look. Someone raised an eyebrow at the woman who walked by with a basket full of baby formula. Mark did nothing but stand there and nod like a student who had been told off. He whispered something about “being careful next time.”
Then his eyes met mine.
He stopped moving. He opened his mouth a little, like he was going to say something funny or smart, but nothing came out. He looked at Amber and said something that I could barely make out.
“I need to talk to her. About the kids.”
Even though Amber said she cared, she didn’t. As if she were getting ready for war, she rolled her eyes, grabbed the stroller handles, hissed something under her breath, and stomped off. The stroller wheels made a lot of noise as they went over the tiles.
The child on Mark’s hip whimpered, but no one heard it.
It was just the two of us after that.
“Hey… Julia,” he said, sounding unsure. “You look good. How are you?”
I only said “fine,” nothing more or less. I wasn’t going to give him a safe place to rest.
He gave a nod and took a deep breath. He looked at the floor for a moment and then back at me.
“I didn’t expect to see you here.”
I said, “Well.” “It’s a grocery store, Mark. Not some silent retreat that’s invite only.”
He let out a weak laugh and settled the child on his hip. The little kid had brown eyes like my kids did.
“Yeah, right. Of course.”
The space between us grew longer and longer, heavy with all the things we hadn’t said out loud. He finally spoke.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
I didn’t answer. I let the silence float between us like fog. He could write in his diary about how he felt to feel better.
“I thought I was doing the right thing. I was trying to find myself, Jules. I was trying to fix something inside me.”
“Instead, you found three kids under three,” I stated.
The truth hit him hard, making him wince.
“Amber’s different now. It’s not what I thought.”
I meant to say this, but didn’t: You weren’t either.
Another time, he said, “I miss what we had.” “I was stupid. I didn’t see how good I had it.”
I used to repeat that line over and over in my head. It made me think of him late at night, lying in our bed by myself, his voice breaking and his eyes full of sorrow. I used to believe that hearing those words would make me better.
that I might finally feel like I had won.
But I didn’t feel victorious as I stood there in the grocery store with a child pulling on his sleeve and a stain on his wrinkly shirt.
I was just tired.
I opened my mouth to answer, but someone touched the small of my back gently before I could. It felt warm and right.
“Everything okay, my love?”
When I turned around, I saw Leo. He stood next to me. His stance was quiet and strong, and his face was soft. His cart was half full of things I forgot to buy. I never felt like I had dropped the ball because he always picked up what I had missed.
“Yeah,” I replied. “Everything’s absolutely fine.”
Mark blinked and looked from my face to Leo’s. What kind of math was going on in his head? Who was this man? Why did he come here? He looked at me like I had hung the moon and all the stars.
“This is Leo,” I told him. “My fiancé.”
Mark’s face twitched just enough to show that there was more going on than met the eye. He reached out and put out his hand to Leo, who gladly took it.
“Nice to meet you,” Leo said courteously. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Mark said, “Nice to meet you too.”
There was a pause. The kind of stop that makes you feel like you have things to do.
“Ryan and Emma are doing great,” I told them. “They’re still upset you haven’t called, but it’s okay. They’ve got Leo now.”
Ryan doesn’t walk around his dad as much as he used to, but when it rains, I sometimes see him looking at the door as if he’s still hoping. Emma, on the other hand, just brushes it off, which scares me more. Kids deal with grief in different ways, and being quiet is another way that hearts break.
Mark’s jaw tensed up a little. He looked down and gave one nod.
“Leo’s been helping them through a lot. They both have really intense abandonment issues. We had to get them into therapy because… well. You understand, right? Leo’s good with them. Patient.”
“I’m glad they’re okay,” Mark said in a softer voice.
“Ryan is a great athlete,” Leo said, putting out his hand to make peace. “I’m sure he got that from you. And Emma is getting into ballet. It’s incredible to see them blossom into themselves.”
I smiled at Leo and grabbed his arm. I smiled at Mark too, but it wasn’t one of pardon. It was one of ending things.
“Ready to check out?”
If I said yes, he would kiss my face like he had done a hundred times before. Right then, we started to walk away.
Mark did not follow. He stood there with one child in his arms and two more down the aisle. The weight of all the decisions he’d made was hitting him hard.
He blink, then looks at the ground and then back at the child he’s holding. He wasn’t just tired, I could tell—he was lost in the life he thought he wanted.
Leo got close as we turned the bend.
“You sure you’re okay?”
I took a quick look back. Mark didn’t look as big as I remembered. He looked too old and lost.
I told them, “I’m fine.” “Actually, I’m good.”
I really meant it.
There was no big exit or speech to end the show. Peace only.
Happiness speaks louder than sadness, I’ve learned.
That night, there were only the four of us at dinner.
The table was loud, with people talking and cutting food at the same time. Ryan liked the salmon that Leo cooked just the way Emma had made it.
I looked at all of the people I loved sitting around the table, which had seemed way too big after Mark left. It felt full again now.
Not the same, but good.
I cleared my throat in the middle of the meal.
Kindly, I told him, “I saw your dad today.” “At the store.”
The table became quiet, and the forks stopped moving.
Ryan looked up and asked, “Did he say anything?”
I said, “He did,” and nodded. “He apologized. He said he missed what we all had.”
At first, Ryan didn’t say anything.
He said in a low voice, “He could have just called us.” “It’s not that hard.”
Leo grabbed him across the table and put a hand on his shoulder. “You can be mad.”
She didn’t look up from her food.
She took another bite of fish and asked, “He has his new family now, right?” “I’m sure he’s happy. Mom, can I get a new leotard this week? Mine’s too tight.”
“Yes, baby,” I replied, not sure why my daughter didn’t care. “We’ll get you one this weekend.”
Take a sip of your drink, Leo. “And maybe this weekend you and I can go look for that new baseball glove.”
“Really?”
“Really. You’ve earned it. And I can’t wait to see you play next weekend.”
Ryan gave a quick nod, as if he didn’t want to look too happy. But I could tell that he was happy because his shoulders were sitting back.
I looked around the table when the talk went back to school work and plans for the weekend. Their fight over who left an empty juice box in the fridge made them laugh again, and I could feel something finally settle in my chest.
It seemed like the pain would always be there, but this was also there.
This warmth. This peace. This family.
That was enough.
