Chapter 3 - The Truth Beneath the Table
Saturday morning arrived under a gray sky.
Monique had canceled the furniture pickup on Thursday, the morning after Isaiah left.
The company had charged a cancellation fee.
She paid it without arguing.
Now the wooden dining table stood exactly where it always had, surrounded by four mismatched chairs.
Monique ran her fingertips along its scratched surface.
She had called it ugly.
Outdated.
Embarrassing.
She had once told Isaiah it looked like something somebody had rescued from a garage sale.
He hadn't laughed.
He had simply replied, “My dad built it.”
She remembered that now.
But she had never asked him anything else about it.
At eleven, the doorbell rang.
Andre stood on the porch carrying a small cardboard box.
Monique stiffened.
“Where's Isaiah?”
“He's working today.”
Andre glanced past her.
“He asked me to pick up a few things from the garage. Said you knew I was coming.”
She had received the text that morning.
She stepped aside.
Andre moved carefully through the hallway.
He didn't behave as though Monique were an enemy.
That almost made the encounter harder.
While he gathered Isaiah's tools from the garage, Monique remained beside the dining table.
When Andre returned, he stopped in the doorway.
“You canceled the pickup.”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Monique looked down.
“Did he tell you about the argument?”
“Some of it.”
“Then you probably think I'm terrible.”
Andre shifted the box against his hip.
“I think you two have been hurting each other for a long time.”
Monique looked up.
She had expected him to take Isaiah's side without hesitation.
Andre nodded toward the table.
“You know he helped his father build that, right?”
Monique frowned.
“He told me his father made it.”
“His dad designed it. Isaiah helped cut and sand the boards.”
Andre put the box down.
“They worked on it every weekend one summer. Isaiah was sixteen.”
Monique stared at the oak surface.
“His father was sick then?”
“Not yet. That came years later.”
Andre walked closer.
“When his dad got diagnosed, Isaiah started coming over every Sunday. They'd sit right there and eat together. Even after his dad got too weak to work in the shop.”
Monique felt a tightening in her throat.
“He never told me that.”
Andre studied her expression.
“Did you ever ask?”
The question wasn't cruel.
That was why it hurt.
Monique looked at the table again.
The furniture she had dismissed as junk had been part of Isaiah's childhood.
Part of his relationship with his father.
Part of the life he had built before she arrived.
Andre picked up the box.
“Look, Monique. I'm not here to make you feel worse.”
“Then why are you telling me this?”
“Because he wasn't fighting you over a piece of furniture.”
He paused.
“He was trying to explain why something mattered to him.”
After Andre left, Monique pulled out one of the chairs and sat down.
She tried to imagine sixteen-year-old Isaiah sanding those boards beside his father.
She pictured them carrying the finished table into the house.
She wondered how proud his father had been.
And suddenly the scratch marks looked different.
They were no longer imperfections to hide beneath a table runner.
They were signs of a life.
Her phone vibrated.
A message from Isaiah.
“Thanks for letting Andre get the tools.”
Monique stared at the words.
She could have answered with another request to talk.
She could have told him how badly she missed him.
Instead, she wrote:
“I canceled the pickup. I should never have arranged it without your permission. I'm sorry.”
A few minutes later, he replied.
“Thank you.”
Nothing more.
Monique set the phone down.
Across town, Isaiah was sitting in his parked work truck when he read her message.
He felt relieved that the table was safe.
But relief wasn't the same as trust.
He remembered the last time Monique had apologized.
And the time before that.
Each apology had sounded sincere.
Then another argument would arrive, and the same words would come back.
“Too sensitive.”
“Too controlling.”
“Stop acting like a victim.”
Isaiah had contributed to their problems too.
He knew that.
Whenever he felt cornered, he sometimes retreated behind the phrase “my house.”
It was a fact that he owned the property.
But using ownership to end a disagreement had never made Monique feel like a partner.
He could recognize his part without pretending her treatment of him had been acceptable.
That evening, Monique's mother, Bernice, called.
Denise had apparently told her Isaiah had moved out.
“Baby, don't you go begging that man,” Bernice said immediately.
“Mama—”
“If he wants you back, make him put your name on that house. Then maybe he'll learn you aren't somebody he can threaten.”
Monique closed her eyes.
Her mother had spent years teaching her never to depend too heavily on a man.
When Monique was a child, she had watched Bernice leave a difficult relationship with almost nothing.
She understood where her mother's fear came from.
She had carried some of that fear into Isaiah's home.
But fear didn't excuse everything.
“He didn't threaten me, Mama,” Monique said.
“What?”
“I told him to leave.”
Bernice went quiet.
Then she scoffed.
“Sometimes you have to show a man you're serious.”
Monique looked toward the dining table.
“I think I've spent too long trying to show Isaiah that I could win every argument.”
“Girl, what are you talking about?”
Monique answered slowly.
“I'm talking about the fact that I might have destroyed something good because I was too afraid to admit I needed it.”
And when her mother started to object, Monique did something unusual.
She didn't argue.
May you like
She simply ended the call.
Because she had finally understood the difference between defending herself and refusing to admit when she was wrong.
