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“It’s amazing how someone can break your heart and you can still love them with all the little pieces,” Ella Harper
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Tom has a new routine now that he’s living the life of a maybe bachelor; working late in the office, coming home—and he uses the term very loosely—even later, falling asleep on the couch or in one of the many rooms they never got around to decorating. Any room that doesn’t have memories of her. Of them. He tells himself it’s not just the guilt that locks him out of their marital bed; tells himself it’s more the absence of her. Truth is, Tom has never felt more alone, despite never being as close to the sun as he is now, right in the inner sanctum.
When Friday night rolls around and Greg blows him off for his real friends, Tom sits on the sofa with a bottle of ice-cold white wine and a glass his only company as he stares. Stares at the blank walls. The place had always been rather barren, joyless, to him. The minimalist style Shiv preferred, blank walls and ornate furniture, made Tom feel colder than the winters of Minnesota ever could. He stares long enough the crisp wine goes warm; he drinks it anyway.
In retrospect, it’s only been two weeks since Italy but the combination of silence from his wife, the emptiness of their apartment and the pressure of being Logan Roy’s nearest and closest punching bag, it feels as though months or even years have passed. Tom thinks about Italy a lot, even in his dreams—nightmares, memories, what ifs—he thinks about it. Thinks about whether he made the right move after all. It had all seemed so clear in that moment; she hadn’t been thinking about him, she perhaps never had. So he wanted to strike, quickly and fast without so much of a thought for her and the consequences of his actions. It’s what she’d done their whole marriage.
The minutes, hours following that call to Logan had been exhilarating. He’d finally made a move, finally dispelled any notions that he didn’t have what it took to win.
What Tom hadn’t expected was his wife to leave, without so much as a text or a call after she’d slipped away from him in the quietness of the night. There wasn’t a moment that he didn’t think about her; where she was, how she was doing.
It’s been two whole weeks since he’d last seen her, quietly packing her bag at their villa after that night. She’d barely looked at him let alone spoken to him in the car ride back to their room, looked everywhere but him once they were alone inside. Tom had been so sure of himself, telling Logan, but he hadn’t expected to see her so broken. So unwilling and unaccepting of his touch, his comfort. He’d thought about telling her then, that it was him who’d sold them out. But that part of him—the very large part—that really did love her, couldn’t stand to see her more broken, more betrayed.
If only she knew what he had done; he doesn’t think he’d see her again. She’d barely spent ten minutes alone with him upon their return to their villa, silently packing her bag and preparing to make her exit without so much as a goodbye.
I’ll see you, she’d said when he’d found her halfway to the door. Soft, sad eyes brimming, not just words wanting to escape.
She hadn’t heard his I love you.
It was a week after they’d all returned from Italy, he sans wife, that Tom had been sitting in his office, head hanging low when he first wondered if what he’d done had been the best move, in the long run. His hands had hovered over her icon, eyes stared as countless messages sat in their thread undelivered. The absence and silence from his wife, the presence and silence from her father were driving him insane. Where was she? How was she? In the end, he’d found out from Logan that the three of them had found Connor, regrouped and sought refuge in one of their many country houses. Which one, the patriarch hadn’t said, though something about his demeanour told Tom that he knew and it was amongst the first indications that he still wasn’t all the way in the patriarch’s inner sanctum.
That was a week ago. Tom had endured another week of radio silence, when finally, two weeks’ worth of messages were finally delivered. The little dinging sound rousing him from where he’d been dozing on the couch, having been unable to cross the threshold into their bedroom.
01:46.
Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, Tom squints at the blurry digits on his phone, illuminating with life.
“Ouch, I’m too old to be falling asleep here…” He mumbles to himself as he slowly rises from the couch, back cracking. “Alright Mondale, it’s time…”
His eyebrows meet in confusion as Tom takes in the empty dog bed, its occupant, his sole companion in the evenings as of late, mysteriously nowhere around.
“Mon?”
Groaning Tom makes a start for the kitchen, remembering the dishes he’d left out. A sick dog is the last thing he needs. He’s heading for the kitchen when he notices the bright crack of light escaping from the nearly-closed bedroom door.
Shiv.
He thinks about taking the steps two at a time, racing up and throwing open the door.
Instead, cautiously, quietly, as though he were a hunter approaching its prey, he makes his way up, his feet heavy as they carry him towards the room he hadn’t dared enter in the two weeks since he’d last seen his wife.
His hand hovers at the door before he gently taps at it, unsure if he’s letting her know that he’s there or asking permission to enter the room. If Tom had been hoping for the latter, he doesn’t get a response save for the shuffling of feet on the floor. He doesn’t get a fuck off either, so he pushes the door open.
Mondale on the bed is the first thing he sees, the back of his wife, hunched over her open carryon that she’d taken to Italy.
“Shiv, hey…” His voice is high, slightly shaky and unsure as he watches her unmoved, as if she hadn’t heard him. Mondale lets out a low, sleepy growl, pulling Tom’s focus away from Shiv.
“Hey Mondale, how did you get in here? Did Shiv let you in?” The dog gets showered with soft pets as Tom sits gingerly at the end of the bed, eyes darting between his dog and his wife. Only the former giving him any attention.
“When—when did you get back?” He directs another question to Shiv, silently imploring her to answer, to acknowledge him. It’s been two weeks, he’s missed the sound of her voice.
“Shiv?”
He takes her in, she looks good. Really good. And he can’t help that familiar feeling bubbling up inside of him, even given the hour. It has been fourteen days after all.
“Honey?”
He takes her in; her having traded her navy business blues for dark, earthy tones. She almost looks like Kendall.
“Where’ve you been, Shiv?”
A clock ticks, time moves, she doesn’t. She doesn’t speak and Tom wonders if he’s daydreaming. If none of this is real and the longing for his wife has manifested itself in this situation where he’s actually talking to himself. If he had sleep-walked into their room, conjured an image of her in his mind. He wonders if he reaches out to touch her if her skin would be as ice cold or if his hand would meet no resistance at all.
02:00
Rubbing a hand on his forehead, he sinks down onto their ottoman and turns once more to maybe Shiv.
“Do you wanna talk about what happened?”
She turns at his question, dark and narrowed eyes locking with his.
It almost breaks him, looking at her. She looks like the Shiv he met all those years ago, who needed him.
.
.
She goes back with Tom, unable to look at Roman, broken on the floor, crying for what she doesn’t know and doesn’t care to find out. The Roys don’t do emotion, they don’t break down on the floor, all eyes on them, except when they do. But Shiv isn’t like that she won’t break down, she won’t let any of them see her weak.
And it paralyses them all. Kendall, ironically with the help of Tom, hauls Roman up off the floor. They ignore the stares of Gerri and Frank as they move out towards the cars, depositing Roman in one.
“Shiv, you coming?” Kendall asks from the door of Roman’s car and her eyes flick between her traitor husband and her broken brothers and god is she a bitch if she thinks the former will be easier for her to deal with than the latter.
But once they were alone in their car, riding back to their villa, she wondered if she’d made the right decision after all. He was being so nice, so nice. He was being Tom, the man she fell in love with, the man she loves. Not the person who’d betrayed her. Just Tom.
She’d let him hold her hand the entire car ride back, despite how she craved to rip it right out of his loose, comforting embrace. She couldn’t. She still needed that connection. That comfort that only he knew how to provide. His hand felt familiar and different at the same time. Shiv had wondered what was wrong with her, that she still wanted him. Needed him.
“It’ll be okay,” Tom had said as he’d led them into their room, gently rubbing her back in the process. Shiv had felt her body leaning back into his embrace, and had started to believe that yes it could be okay. She thought she was losing her mind, slowly. It didn’t make sense, how he held her, how she wanted to be held. How she simultaneously wanted to push him away and pull him closer and never let go.
“Why don’t I run you a bath, to help you relax?” Tom hadn’t waited for her response, setting off to the bathroom to fill the luxurious tub with warm water, sprinkle some lavender bath salts in to help her relax. Or would he fill it to the brim with scalding hot water, plunge her head and hold her under, and finish the job he started? The man whom Shiv had thought she could trust, suddenly replaced with his twin who looked and acted exactly like her Tom but was capable of betraying her.
Shiv had stared after him, standing alone in the middle of the room as she could hear the tap running. See the steam wafting through the air. Could she smell the lavender salts? Or was it just heat? Hear him humming, talking to her still. The room getting hotter and smaller and inescapable.
She couldn’t stay. Not with him, not that night.
Shiv had pulled out her case, folding as much as she could, unceremoniously throwing a lot in. The clothes didn’t matter, not really. Not when she could just buy whatever she wanted. But she had to do something, her hands had to fold and pack and she had to feel like she had some semblance of control over her fate. She was leaving to make a point, leaving because she still could. Because leaving felt like what she should be doing, not staying. Not after what he'd done.
“Shiv?”
She’d continued to pack even after his footsteps grew closer, when she felt his presence at her back once more. A hand coming up to encase her shoulder. Electric spark, the wet water of his hand and her clammy skin had made her jump away.
“What are you—where are you—?”
“Uh…Kendall’s…” she’d pinched her forehead, trying to find a way to make her voice stay flat. Calm.
“Oh…um, are you sure that’s… Do you want me to come…?” Tom had inched closer, hands held up. It’s okay, you’re safe, was what it felt like he was trying to show. She’d backed away anyway because where she’d thought she’d have cracked under the gaze of her brothers, she knows if Tom gets close enough to her once again, she’ll shatter under his touch.
“No…no. I’ll see you…” the silent question mark at the end; when, in what capacity, she doesn’t know.
.
Shiv had thought about what she’d say when she saw him, she’d spent too many hours thinking about it. On the car ride that night, when she’d all but fled their villa. On the plane back to New York, gazing out the window, all her thoughts led back to him and this moment.
Shiv had thought about this very moment ever since she’d walked out of that villa in Italy. She’d thought about the first time she would see him again, how the mere sight of him would make her erupt, make her tear into him, eviscerate every single decision he’d made that night that led him to betray her. She’d thought about how she’d pull his knife out from her back and hold it to his throat, to his tongue for its role in his betrayal. Use her words like fine knives and dissect every decision he’d made that night, open him out like an experiment in lab class, lay him bare and under her complete mercy as she had been so unexpectedly under his.
She’d thought about it, oh how she did. Shiv had thought she’d be prepared, thought she had confronted and buried that conflict she’d had within her that night in Italy. That she’d spent weeks telling herself she didn’t need him, didn’t want him.
But she isn’t prepared, nothing is buried.
Everything she’d rehearsed in her head, every single fibre of anger that had course through her veins as she’d replayed the scene over and over again, vanished. She can’t do anything but stare at the man before her, the man who had found her in her darkest moments. The man who had the capacity to pull her from that darkness, to build the blocks to steady her weak foundations. The same man who’d taken a bulldozer and tore a hole right through it all, shattering any notions of safety, of trust, that she had placed in him.
She can’t do anything but stand there, holding back the tremble of her lips, the tears in her eyes, biting her tongue for fear that her voice would betray her just as he did her.
Standing before him again, doing everything she can to not break down. It feels like she’s sinking. Drowning. Drowning before him but slipping deeper and deeper underwater, back to her dark place. Where he was once the sun pulling her to the surface, he’s both the oppressive night sky and the deep dark depths of the ocean floor. She’s trapped between the two, there’s no escape.
She loves him. She hates him. She needs him. She hates him. She’s furious. She wants him. She hates him.
She loves him.
She loves him.
Love is twenty-eight different things, number one of all, is weakness. She’s kicked him, over and over, and he’s still come back; he’s still there, sitting before her despite the betrayal. And she’s been kicked too, kicked by the person who was never supposed to have any such inclination to do the same. And she’s running back, she wants him still.
“Do you wanna talk about what happened?”
Shaking her head, a no to his question, a no to her tears threatening to escape the cage she’s grown all too well at locking them in. She doesn’t, she can’t even speak to direct Mondale off the bed as she pulls at the covers, lying down and turning to face away from Tom immediately. Tom, whose eyes haven’t left her since the moment he stepped into the room.
“Should I…do you want me to…” His eyes dart between her back and the door; unsure if he should go or stay.
Shiv doesn’t move when she hears the covers rustle, nor when she feels the bed dip behind her.
“Shiv…” Tom turns his head, arm outstretched, resting in the vast space between them. Wanting, needing to touch her. To comfort her.
She can feel the shadow of his fingers against her back, even as she’s pushed herself as close to the edge of the bed that she can. It takes everything in her to stay still, to not move, fighting against that craving and desire to once again try to feel the comforting touch his hands once provided, once again.
“I love you…” he whispers. “I’m glad you’re home.”
It’s so quiet, almost silent, that he thinks she’s already fallen asleep. That is, until he hears the first tear drop onto the pillow. Followed by the second. And then the third.
He pulls his arm back, slowly, eyes never leaving her back.
I love you, too.
.
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It’s not an alarm that stirs Shiv awake, but the sound of Tom’s deep snore, him having forgone his nasal strip the night before having fallen asleep sprawled on his back, arm still outstretched. She hadn’t planned to stay, not initially, anyway, having told herself and her brothers that she needed to stop by her apartment to pick up a few things. It had been true, of course, she’d only taken a few items with her to Italy, the dress she’d worn that night hopefully in the garbage somewhere back in Europe or picked from the trash she’d thrown it in, not wanting the reminder. It didn’t matter that she had all the money in the world and then some, that she could buy whatever she needed. Shiv had told herself she needed specific things, from home.
But in reality, she needed to see him. Even if it were brief, she was supposed to be in and out, slipping in quietly in the dead of the night. Shiv had purposefully not woken him when she’d spotted him slouched uncomfortably on the couch, the realisation instantly hitting her that this had been a terrible idea.
And then he was there, before her. Messy hair, eyes full of sleep, voice soft. Looking like home, sounding so familiar. Like the Tom from before.
“Do you wanna talk about what happened?”
No. Yes.
Before, she would’ve prodded him awake. Passive aggressively pulled all the covers away and cocooned herself on the far corner of the bed. There was a time once when he’d woken, cold, duvetless and had tickled her out of the sheets. Once upon a time.
But not now. Now the abrupt awakening gives her an out, a way to distance herself from him (because somehow, subconsciously, she’d inched closer and closer in her sleep) and slip out before he has a chance to ask her again: Do you wanna talk about what happened?
Shiv doesn’t look back when she walks out of the apartment.
She knows she’ll be back.
.
Tom spends the whole day wondering if he has imagined the night before, the night his wife finally came back to him, in the loosest sense. If his late nights at Waystar and constant battlefield meetings combined with his abundant loneliness and longing for Shiv has conjured his wife the night before. If it had all been a sick dream.
He’d been summoned to the office; despite it being a Saturday. Logan Roy perhaps even more mentally dishevelled, ranting and raving. Tom had sat silently as he watched the senior pace back and forth, yell commands and demands, his body present but his mind elsewhere. On her. Always, as of late, thinking of her.
In his loneliness the weeks of her absence, he’d thought about telling her, that it was he who’d told her father of the siblings’ plan. Tom had tried to think about all the ways that Shiv would react; would she scream and yell, as her father is doing now, or would she silently stew, act with an air of superficial indifference. In all the scenarios that had played out in his head, Tom never once thought that he’d need to utter an apology, didn’t believe that he needed to tell her he was sorry.
“Did you see her? I bet you did,” Logan’s sneer had snapped Tom out of his trance. “You tell her nothing. Unless she’s on her knees. Grovelling. Begging.”
No, Tom had not once in the last few weeks thought he’d need to apologise. But now, oh now how he wants to. Wants nothing more than to apologise, to fix all the wrongs in her world. To make her smile again. To make her talk to him again. But to do that, Tom knows he has to reveal his role in her downfall and he knows that he’s always been a coward, especially with her.
.
He sets half-hourly alarms on his phone, adamant that he won’t miss her entrance. It’s nearly nine o’clock when Mondale’s ears prick up, when Tom hears the sound of a key turning followed by the distinct sound of heels on the tiled floor. She doesn’t stop when she passes through the living room, Mondale following her to the kitchen. Tom follows them, stands in the shadows of the doorway as he watches his wife work through some sort of internal conflict. Fork hovering over the plate of food he’d left out for her.
“Hey…Shiv…”
Shiv glances up from her side of the kitchen island, the opposite end to where he stands. She’s twirling the fork in her hand, bringing it up to her lips. It almost looks threatening, combined with her soft, yet dark, glare. It almost looks threatening, the twirl of the utensil, her soft, moody glare. A chill runs through his spine as he wonders if she somehow knows, she couldn’t possibly .
This is his moment, Tom decides. To tell her.
“Shiv, I was wondering if we could talk.”
She’s chewing slowly, carefully. Breaking down every morsel of food to save her from responding.
“There’s something I need to tell you…”
Shiv sets the fork down, eyebrow arched as she waits, expectantly. Her lips, unencumbered by her meal, slowly part.
And then her phone rings and whatever inclination she’d had to talk to him dies as soon as she hits answer.
(They go to bed as they had done the night before.)
.
It’s a gentle tapping at his hand that stirs Tom awake, nimble fingers softly padding at his hand. His left hand to be precise. Fingers moving daintily, ghosting, fleeting moments of contact that he can only think he’s dreaming for the only other occupant in the room, said owner of those fingers, has barely uttered a whole sentence to him in the two days she’s been back. Hasn’t spoken to him other than a grunt or a mumbled answer; yet she’s the one pulling him gently, quietly awake.
He doesn’t breathe, doesn’t move nor give any indication to the only other occupant in the room, the owner of said wandering hand, that he’s awake.
Tom can’t help how his breath hitches as he feels the gentle twist of his ring, round and round. Round and round. It doesn’t feel like she’s trying to pull it off, it doesn’t feel like she’s trying to unhinge and remove the only physical representation of their marriage.
No, it’s not like that at all. It’s like she’s trying to reassure herself that the ring is still there, twisting it round like a screw, hoping to secure it permanently in place. They’ve both come undone lately, both need a little tightening.
He turns his head when he hears her soft sigh. Her bright eyes, inquisitive and wary, startling him. Shiv’s eyes remain locked on his as he turns from where he’d laid on his back to his side, body following the direction of his head, falling back toward her.
She doesn’t move as his own hand travels slowly between them, from the safety of his side through the gap between them, the gap that until that morning, she’d unwittingly decided to close in her sleep. She doesn’t move even when he clasps her hand in his; not just content with searching out her own rings. No one has touched her since Italy, not since the man beside her had rested his hand on her back, when the bruise he’d invisibly inflicted on it was still forming under the depths of her skin. She hadn’t wanted him to touch her then but in the days since, it had been all she’d thought about. All she craved. That after everything, his was the hand she still most wanted to hold. She hated it, of course, that she still wanted it, almost needed it, after everything.
Testing the waters, Shiv slowly flexes a finger, threading it through one of his. Then another. And then another until their two hands are intertwined. Their rings, refracting the soft rays of the early morning sun as their fingers dance around each other. It’s quiet in the room, save for the sound of their breathing, getting deeper and quicker the more their fingers intertwine, wrapping around one another in a way their bodies used to in what feels like a lifetime ago.
Her finger moves from his hand, travelling up the length of his arm, slowly. Painstakingly slowly as a nail scratches the surface of his skin, not too hard, but hard enough to leave a mark. More visible a mark than he’d left on her skin, when he’d betrayed her and plunged a knife in her back.
Her eyes flicker up from where they’d fixated on her palm, laying open across his heart to his lips, parting slowly, breath inhaling. It’s a combination of panic and the miss of the feel of his lips on hers that pushes her forward, swallowing whole whatever words he’d been about to utter in one swift movement. Shiv clambers atop of him just as desperately as he hauls her to him. Words, forgotten as their tongues duel with desperation at their reacquaintance, their bodies saying everything their mouths won’t. I’ve missed you. I miss you. I’ll miss you.
“Oh, Shiv, ” he murmurs her name, like it’s his last word, already a memory.
And then she’s off him in a flash, escaping his grasp, too quick to hold onto. The bathroom door slams so loudly it makes Tom jump upwards and he stares at the empty space beside him, wondering if he had been dreaming it all. His fingers slowly trace slightly swollen lips as he stares at the closed door.
I will miss you.
.
Shiv stays in the shower, cursing herself for being so weak. For needing his touch, for still desiring it. She scrubs her skin under scalding water as she furiously and fruitlessly blinks tears away. Pretending as though the water would absolve her of the sin of wanting her traitorous husband, would cleanse her of the invisible marks he’d left on her skin, on her heart.
She knows she has to confront him now, that despite rehearsing in the days and weeks since Italy, it’s all a clean slate now. She had only planned to stay one night, to gather some things is what she’d told her brothers.
Kendall and Roman had been wary of her return to her home, to her husband who’d sided against her. It had dawned on her that they still didn’t know and she wondered if she too was betraying them. Protecting a husband who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, protect her. It wouldn’t change anything, Shiv had thought, if Kendall and Roman knew it was Tom. Or, if it did, they would look at her with as much distrust as she feels towards Tom and then she’d be on her own. Abandoned by her father, discarded by her husband and brothers.
Shiv painfully now recognises the mistake that she once made in choosing to save Tom over Kendall. A mistake which she knows she can’t make again. Once she reemerges from the shower, reenters their bedroom, she’ll be a new woman; the same woman she’d dreamt she’d be on that plane ride back from Italy and during the car journey back to her apartment. The woman who’d confront her traitorous husband, who’d make him beg and grovel.
The woman who’d walk away.
.
When she reemerges from the bedroom, their bed is made. The mahogany brown weekend bag, one of her first gifts to Tom when they’d first started dating, slowly being filled by its owner. Tom wordlessly moving between the open drawer and bag, shirts and slacks neatly folded in his hands.
It causes her to pause, for a moment, the resolve she’d gathered in the safety of the shower immediately dissipating as quickly as the water droplets down the drain. He’s bested her once again.
“Tom?” Her voice, unexpected, causes Tom to falter, almost tripping over his feet as he looks up.
“This isn’t working, Shiv…” he finds his voice again quickly, though, despite his height over her, feels small against her gaze. “I think that maybe, it’s best while everything with—with your dad, and Waystar, until it blows over…I stay in a hotel, just for a few…days.”
He says days though he’s unsure as to whether it could be weeks, even months, before they find their way back to each other.
Something snaps within Shiv, anger suddenly bubbling within her, threatening to spill at his audacity to leave her. He wasn’t supposed to leave. Unknowingly and unwittingly, Tom had upended her plans once again. Her grand entrance and exit; she was supposed to leave him.
“You know, Tom. This whole time, I’ve been trying to figure it out…” she goes to his wardrobe, grabs a sweater and throws it onto the bed. Followed by some socks, a tie. She’s never packed his bag before, there might as well be a first time for everything. It dawns on her, as she reaches for another tie, that this could be the last time she’ll do this. “Why you did it.”
“Did…what Shiv?”
She smirks at him, handing him a shirt. “My brothers may think you’re an agricultural hick, Tom, but we both know you have more intelligence than that.”
He accepts another shirt from her, packing it neatly in his bag. Mouth drying, eyes narrowing. Brain working in overdrive. She can’t know.
“Fucking over your wife, Tom.” Her voice is thick of coldness and it’s confounding the way she’s both simultaneously cut through the tension that had been building and shrouded them further in it. There’s a coldness in her voice, sharp as a knife, every syllable cutting through the air.
They seem to be in a vacuum, with no sound penetrating bar the sound of Shiv ruffling through his drawers, pulling shirts from their hangers and throwing them swiftly, sharply like daggers, through the air.
Tom’s phone buzzes on the vanity where he’d left it, two pairs of eyes immediately drawn to its offending sound.
“Is that him?” Shiv sneers, striding forwards then coming to an abrupt stop. “Why bother with a hotel when you’re quite clearly so comfortable with the bed you made. With my dad.”
“Shiv…”
“What about us, Tom? Did you think about us?”
Tom surprises them both by snapping, something he has refrained from doing with Shiv, having grown accustomed to bottling it all in and then slowly unravelling when he could no longer hold it in anymore. And maybe it’s the fact that this is the most they’ve spoken in nearly three weeks, or the pressure of his secret, his betrayal. Or it’s seeing her and wanting to still fix her when he’s enraged at her, enraged at all she’s done in the past.
“Did you, Shiv? Have you once thought about us, thought about me?”
“This is—”
“No, Shiv.”
“I told you, Tom, we had a plan—” incredulous, Shiv throws up her hands.
“You had a plan? Okay, okay.” Tom nods, the saddest of grins forming on his face because she’s incredulous. “Well we had a plan once, Shiv, do you remember that? And you screwed me over once, have been screwing me over, behind my back, this whole time…”
“You can’t trust him, Tom. He’ll throw yo—”
“And I can trust you, Shiv? Really? You don’t know what the fuck you’re doing, you–you waltz in thinking daddy’s handed you the keys to the castle. You and Kendall and Roman, you storm the palace, thinking you’re riding on stallions. You’re reckless, all of you. Especially you.”
Shiv shakes her head, both to refute him and to shake the tears away. Because Tom, Tom was supposed to be the one in her corner, the one she could trust, you’re the only one I can talk to about this stuff. Her confidante, her rock, company for her in the corner that her father had put her in.
“I had to protect myself, Shiv. Think of myself. One of us had to. It’s not like you were thinking of me. I’m not sure you ever have.”
Chest heaving, Tom turns away from her, dropping with his back to his wife to sit on their bed.
He doesn’t turn around but he hears her still, feels the dip in the bed. Knows she’s sitting behind him, he can see the back of her head in the vanity mirror. They sit like that for minutes, back to back, in silence, until his phone buzzes one more time, signalling it’s time for him to leave for his waiting car.
His knees pop and the bed creaks as he stands and Tom risks a glance behind him as he reaches for his case. Shiv doesn’t turn. She doesn’t move; she sits perfectly statuesque.
“Listen, Shiv I can…”
“I think you’re right, Tom…” Right about what, Tom doesn’t know and Shiv doesn’t expand further. She’s turned to face him, at least, but her eyes don’t—won’t or can’t—meet his; instead, she looks through him, just beyond his shoulder.
“I…”
“I think it’s best if we…” Shiv hadn’t expected it to be this hard. Or perhaps she had, which is why she had avoided speaking to him the night she’d returned, letting herself have him, as much as she could, just one more time. But she’s tired, tired of fighting. “Have some space.”
“Have some space?” Tom finds himself nodding, in a dazed agreement with her. Space did indeed sound like a good idea. But he watches her not watching him, waiting for her to say something else. Hoping that she would. Stay. I’m wrong. I need you. It doesn’t come. “What does that—fine, okay.”
Shiv sets her eyes on him, finally, and it pains him to see how they glimmer in the light.
“Okay,” she nods, also somewhat stunned and dazed.
“Okay,” he repeats, hand clutching the handle of his suitcase as his feet remain frozen.
Tom doesn’t tell her he’s sorry, and Shiv doesn’t tell him she loves him. Neither would change a thing.
.
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It’d been two days since Tom had walked out of his home, two days since the argument with his wife. He still isn’t sure how she knows, or what she plans to do with the information. All Tom knows is he hasn’t been more miserable, and his position, within the company, the family, hasn’t been more precarious.
“Logan, hey. Hi. How are we doing today?” Tom settled onto the couch alongside his father-in-law, ignoring the look of irritation that he’d received from the other man.
“Good. And you, Tom?” Logan asked, his head already turned in a clear signal to Tom that he hadn’t really cared for a response.
“Not so good, uh, great, actually,” Tom stuttered. “You see, Shiv and I…well we’ve had a bit of a…I’m…we’re taking some space.”
The elder man had snorted, a sly smirk on his face as he glanced at Tom once more. “Shiv’s always been difficult.”
It had elicited a nervous laughter from Tom, which had only grown disastrously louder as the silence persisted.
“Can you fix it?”
The question immediately halted Tom’s awkward laughter. Was he expected to fix it? Did he need to? His eyes grew wider and skin impossibly paler, clammier, as he attempted to read the other man’s facial expression. They were talking about his daughter, after all.
“I…oh, I….I’m sure we’ll iron it all out. But…what would happen…”
“If you and Shiv were to bust up?”
Tom nods, eagerly, seeking assurance that they—he and Logan—will be alright, that they are separate from he and Shiv.
“If we’re good, we’re good.” Logan had mysteriously replied, offering no such assurance to Tom.
“Well…” Tom had grinned, feigning relief. “That’s heartening to hear.”
The conversation played on repeat in Tom’s mind throughout the rest of the day, until he’d retreated back to his quiet hotel room. The chilled white wine that he and Shiv usually shared before a meal now replaced with a small bottle of vodka courtesy of his hotel mini bar. The gold band on his hand clinks loudly against his glass.
Gently, Tom sets his drink down before he slides off his ring, twirling it on the dark wooden surface of the table. He loves his wife, he does. Tom spins the ring again, as if it were a Magic8 ball. He loves his job. But without his wife, could he still have said job? The ring spins round and round as the dread that had arisen following his conversation with Logan spins just as fast in his mind.
It spins and spins as his eyes go glassy, dizzy with the repetitive motion and the alcohol-fueled thought.
With a loud yell, he flips the table over. The glass smashes on the floor as the ring hits the ground, rolling under the bed, into the dark, out of sight.
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Shiv ignores calls from Kendall and then Roman, no doubt igniting their paranoia that she was selling them out, until her phone stops ringing, finally running out of battery. She’d cocooned herself in her and Tom’s bed, cold sheets wrapped around her as she’d replayed their fight over and over in her head.
“It’s not like you were thinking of me. I’m not sure you ever have.” Shiv had never really wanted to dwell too much on her womanhood, didn’t like to think about the invisibility cloak that she—all women—wore in male-dominated spheres. But did Tom, Tom who had stood before her as chairman of ATN News (because of her), who had the freedom to leave her having not been sitting in a locked jail cell (because of her), really think that she had not once thought of him?
Kendall’s the one who lets himself into the apartment, pokes his head in every room until he finds her. Still in bed. Mondale leaps to her defense, her brother having seldom met the dog long enough for him to remember.
“It’s fine, Mondale.” Her voice is quiet, monotone.
The dog still watches Kendall as he looks awkwardly around the room.
“Are you—okay?” Kendall asks, eyes sweeping over the room to the figure wrapped up in sheets to the open closet doors, empty hangers strewn across the floor. “Where’s Tom, Shiv?”
“Hotel.”
She doesn’t say more, he understands. He’s always understood her, better than she would ever admit to anyone.
“It was always going to be hard…marriage…”
“Not like we ever had good role models, is it Ken?”
“No, no. Rava and I…we tried…but, it was me.”
“Connor and Willa set a date so maybe…some last minute inspiration, y’know?” He laughs, it’s painful.
Shiv finally sits up in bed and gives her brother a small smile. He’s still standing awkwardly between her and the open closet door and a part of her wonders if her older brother is trying to protect her, as he had done throughout his whole life, from what was always going to be inevitable.
“It’ll be easier, divorce. For you. Than it was for me, or mom and dad.”
Kendall pauses, in some sort of suspense and Shiv dreads what he’ll say next.
“Kids, you and Tom don’t have them. You’re lucky, they would’ve complicated it.”
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Tom pulls on the tie around his neck as he scans the small crowd gathered for the eldest Roy child’s nuptials, looking for someone to latch onto upon arriving alone. Alone, as he’d spent the last week since he’d left his home. Left his wife. He’d almost not made it to the wedding. Not by choice, but because he supposes his invitation was sent to that very home he’d last seen over a week ago, addressed to Siobhan Roy and Tom Wambsgans. It had only been when Greg had been mumbling about suits and colour schemes and whether Willa would invite any of her old friends for him to hook up with, “Just the ones I don’t have to pay, do you think I’ll know who…Or what do you think my chances would be if—”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Tom had snapped that evening when the two of them had found themselves crammed at one end of a large business room table.
Greg had turned to him as if he’d grown several heads, “Connor’s wedding? To Willa? On Saturday…aren’t you going…with Shiv?”
It had been at that moment that Tom had realised that without Shiv, he was an outsider to the family. He rarely has contact socially with her brothers, Connor the least of all. And he’d spent the whole week with Logan who hadn’t said one word about the wedding.
“Ah yes… No, I mean. I’m not staying at home…Shiv came back.”
“Did she throw you out? For what you did?” Greg had nodded in understanding before delivering that blow, for insinuating somehow that he was on Shiv’s side, despite the younger man gaining from the other’s betrayal.
“As a matter of fact, Greg,” Tom pops out his name like it’s a gunshot, attempting to fire back. “I left. So there.”
Tom wasn’t sure what he’d been trying to achieve with that, the look of pity on Greg’s face most certainly wasn’t it. It wasn’t the win he wanted or needed, and in fact, it makes him feel worse.
“Oh cool, uh, good for you man. So, she knows.. It was you?”
Tom hadn’t needed to respond, the glare he’d send Greg had said it all.
“So like, are you getting divorced?”
The idea alone propels Tom forward, grasping Greg by his suit lapels and pushing him against the wall.
“Okay okay, man. Jeez, just …let me go… ok?”
Tom loosens his grip on the younger man and stalks away.
He really does love her. And it complicates everything.
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The sight of Shiv walking in snaps Tom out of his thoughts; she doesn’t appear to notice him. She’s talking to a few people when he approaches, him on the outskirts of her circle, hovering behind her.
“Hey,” he places a hand on her waist as he leans forward to place a kiss on her cheek. Out of habit or performance for those around, neither Tom or Shiv are sure.
“Hi.” Shiv’s smile is fixed and false on her face as Tom hovers by her side. She tries to tune out the feeling of his hand on her waist as she plasters the falsest of smiles on her face and redirects her attention back to her company.
It’s either Tom’s imposing presence and glare that she can see out of the corner of her eye or the awkward atmosphere that had shrouded them since Tom’s arrival that sends the small party gathered around the two away, leaving the pair standing awkwardly side by side. They stand in silence for the better part of ten minutes before a waiter enters their orbit, a tray of flutes filled with chilled champagne just within reach.
“Why don’t I get us—” he almost lurches forward before abruptly freezing at the sound of her voice.
“Actually, Tom…” her voice drips with something peculiar, strained, as Tom eyes her curiously. “I think we have some time. Before this whole…circus begins. We need to talk.”
“Yes. Yep, okay…none for us, shoo !” Tom flicks a hand towards the waiter, gazing longingly at the drink as it, and the waiter, disappears from eyesight. It’s when Shiv clears her throat that his gaze snaps back to her as she looks expectantly at him over her shoulder.
Like an obedient dog, he follows her as they weave their way through the ensemble of guests assembled for the nuptials, down through weaving corridors of locked doors until they find one unlocked. The sounds of the party above are muffled as Shiv closes the door delicately, one hand flat on the wooden frame and Tom doesn’t know if it’s the angle he’s at, having entered first and so looking at her from behind, if she’s resting her forehead on her hand, bracing herself for something.
“So Tom,” Shiv begins, turning from where she’d closed the door, looking him up and down. Taking him in. Her eyes pause on his hand, his left hand to be precise and awkwardly, Tom follows her gaze down. After the incident with the table, he’d searched on hands and knees to find the golden band that had rolled off. Searched to little success. He’d ordered the cleaning staff to tear the room apart to find it, and accused one too many of stealing the band to sell off.
“Ah, I was in…a rush, you see. And I—” His voice trails off as Shiv shrugs her shoulder, feigning indifference.
“Yeah, whatever. No big deal. I can’t make you do anything, Tom. Wear it, don’t wear it. It’s up to you.”
“No, well Shiv…I do want to, I do…it’s just how we left thi—”
“I’m late..” she interrupts him, halting his ramblings with the two sharp words.
“Late? Shiv you asked me to talk, if you need to get somewhere…at your brother’s wedding? Can’t it wait?”
“No, Tom. It’s something Ken said…”
“What did Kendall say? Shiv, I’m not quite following…”
“Uh,” Shiv pinches her forehead as she leans her back against the door. “Kendall stopped by, a day or two after you left. I was feeling…not great. And uh, he said di—divorce would be easier for us, because we don’t have children.”
Shiv waits in hope that he understands where she’s going with this; hopes that she doesn’t have to say it.
“Divorce? Shiv do you want…” Tom’s eyes wander around the room as the clocks in his brain start turning. “Easier if we…”
Oh. Oh. He finally sits down.
“Everything’s just been so hectic since we returned from Italy and maybe I forgot to take my pills after…after that night.” Sex Vegas, a night amongst a sea of memories Shiv wishes she could forget. How cruel the universe could be, that it possibly has given her a lifelong reminder of that night, the days before and after it. “And when we got back, you know, we went straight to the Hamptons and maybe I…forgot. Or didn’t have them.”
“Uh-huh,” Tom nods, trying to follow along as the words tumble out of Shiv’s mouth.
“Ok, well. I thought you should know. If it’s…real,” Shiv winces, but feels the need to continue and clarify. “It would be yours.”
Tom nods, dazed at another reminder of how tentative their marriage is now. That she would have to specify. That he would have perhaps asked and wondered, that perhaps he would still wonder, despite what she said. The small amount of trust left between them, was it enough to carry them through the rest of their lives, perhaps now intertwined forever, together?
“And I mean, it may not be…anything. But I think you should know, now. That it could be…something.”
A part of her wants it to be real, wants there to be life growing inside of her for then she would have an excuse to stay. With Tom. Couldn’t tear her family apart, not like her mother and father. Not like Kendall. When it all gets out, Tom’s betrayal to her, her betrayal to her brothers for siding with her husband (because she will, she’s decided, if, when , she has to choose, Kendall and Roman or him, she’d choose him). She needs a reason other than love, because that’s not enough nor has it ever been or ever will be. Even though she does, she really does, love him with what she can. And while the thought of her turning into her mother has her falling to her knees every night praying to a god she doesn’t know exists to take it all away from her, she’s begging her prayers go unanswered.
“Yeah, yeah. Of course. It might be nothing, but Shiv,” he marvels up at her like she’s the sun rising after a long, dark night. “It could be everything.”
“It could…really save us Shiv. It…we might need this.” Ring be damned, that could be replaced, if he— they —wanted. But this, this was his answer to everything. Their marriage, held fragilely together by a thread, could be saved. His position within the family, the company, saved.
There’s a part of Tom who wants to berate him into thinking a child could solve all their problems, could mask the cracks in their fragile foundations. A year or two, or ten or twelve, however long they could pretend. He hopes that whatever comes out of this, that it’ll forgive him, forgive them. He’d love the child, of course, as much—if not more—than he loves his wife.
“Wait.. you and Kendall, do you want a divorce, Shiv? Are you…would you… get an abortion?” He whispers the last part, as if afraid to utter the words would jinx it all.
“No. No, I wouldn’t. Do that. I don’t think, no.”
Relief washes over Tom’s face, before tentatively asking. “And the divorce?”
The pause she gives him makes him hold his breath, before he slowly releases it with the slow shake of her head. “No. I don’t want…that. Do, do you?”
“No, no. Of course not. I love you, I do. And you know, Italy…we can get past it, with this. God, Shiv, your dad…he’ll be…so thrilled.”
Shiv can’t deny that she hadn’t thought about him. Her father, and how he would react to the news. He would be thrilled. A tiny bundle of pure Roy. Ten small fingers and ten tiny toes could be her way back inside, to give her father the heir he’d desired for so long, that he couldn’t (or wouldn’t) see in Kendall or Roman, or in her or Sophie or Iverson. She hates that she thought about what it could mean for her.
“Maybe, let’s not tell him. Or anyone. Just because we don’t know…for sure, yet.”
“Sure, okay. You’re right. Whatever you say Shiv.” Tom nods, obediently, easily falling back into place. Relinquishing his newly-gained control in their relationship, tips the scales back in her favour, handing her back the proverbial dice for her to roll.
He realises he hasn’t hugged her, touched her. And he moves forward. Shiv, with her back to the door, watches him carefully. Lets herself be folded into his broad chest, letting her eyes close as she inhales that familiar scent. Unbeknownst to her, Tom does the same. His own eyes falling closed as he too takes in her fragrant shampoo, memorises the way her body naturally fits to his. Lets himself dream of the months ahead, of how she’ll feel different against him. Different, but still the same.
“This is…” Like a dream. A nightmare . Shiv isn’t sure what she would describe their current predicament as. She doesn’t know why she wants it to be real more than she wants to wake up, to shake away the growing nausea, to attribute her sudden and random cravings to something other than the obvious.
“Yeah.. it’s…”
“Crazy. I mean, we don’t even know. For sure.” She’s sure. For all rational and irrational thinking, she knows this is real. But her own nervous laughter inspires Tom’s own stuttered nervous chuckle, and Shiv wonders if this is something he really wants.
“So crazy.” His hands brace her shoulders as he searches her eyes, looking for any indication that this is all a joke. A dream. Searching for something that he knows, deep down, he won’t find. Searching for a sign of deceit, reciprocating his own betrayal. “So…what do we do now?”
Tom looks at her, expectantly, waiting to be told, to be led into the next chapter of their lives.
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