My Wife Sent Me Away, So I Took the Whole Research Team

That night I came home.

Silas's voice drifted out from the kitchen.

"Professor Gilbert, you're such a good cook. Andrew's a lucky man. I'm jealous, honestly."

"Stop it. Here, taste the fish, tell me how it turned out."

I reached the kitchen doorway just in time to see Winona lift a piece of fish with her chopsticks and hold it out to Silas's mouth.

The sight cut into me.

Three years of marriage, and Winona had never once been that tender with me.

Silas closed his eyes, chewed twice, then opened them and gushed, "It's incredible, Professor. You could go head to head with any five-star hotel chef."

Winona laughed, pleased. "Really? Let me try."

Without a second thought she picked up more fish with the same chopsticks and put it in her own mouth.

"See? I wasn't exaggerating. Professor, you're... oh. Andrew, you're back."

Only then did Silas seem to notice me.

Winona set her chopsticks down calmly and looked at me, her voice flat. "You're home. Go wash up, dinner's ready."

Silas came out of the kitchen carrying two dishes. As he passed me, his smile was all innocence.

"Andrew, the professor said tonight's basically your farewell dinner, so I begged to come along. You don't mind, do you?"

Before I could answer, Winona said, "What's there to mind? One more person for his send-off just makes it livelier. Otherwise it'd be too quiet with only the two of us."

Silas's smile spread wider at that, and the look he gave me was pure challenge.

I didn't so much as glance at him. I walked into the bathroom, my face blank.

Too quiet?

That wasn't what Winona said when she married me.

She said she didn't like crowds. She said a home was the small, warm harbor of a husband and wife, with no room to dock any other boat.

And now she'd contradicted every word of it herself.

When I came out of the bathroom, Winona and Silas were already seated, close together, closer than any teacher and student ever sat.

"Your seat's over there."

Winona pointed across from her.

I said nothing, walked over, and sat down.

She opened a bottle of red wine and poured for herself and Silas, forgetting me entirely.

It took Silas reminding her before she said, offhand, "Andrew doesn't care for red wine. It's just us."

I don't care for red wine. That doesn't mean I can't drink it.

I didn't say it out loud. There was no point.

Winona clinked glasses with Silas and took a sip, then lifted a piece of fish and dropped it into his bowl.

"If you like it, eat more."

Her tone was gentle, her eyes soft, like a wife doting on her husband.

Silas shot me a look, careless or not, and put on a show of shyness. "Professor, didn't you say this fish is Andrew's favorite? I couldn't take what he loves."

Winona waved it off. "He can't finish it all by himself. Sharing a little with you is nothing. Don't worry about it, just eat."

My chopsticks stopped. I looked at her for a few seconds, then said, my voice rough,

"So this is how you see love? Something that can be shared?"

Winona's brow creased at once. "It's one fish. How did that turn into love? If you've got nothing useful to say, just eat."

I smiled.

One fish doesn't stand for love, no. But your attitude does.

After another sip of wine, Winona turned to me. "Since you haven't handed the projects over to Silas yet, I've decided he'll stay the night. You can transfer everything to him before morning."

Silas's smile was all pretense. "Sorry to put you through it, Andrew. I really didn't want to intrude on your evening alone with the professor, but there's no choice. If the handover isn't finished and you leave tomorrow, the whole group grinds to a halt."

When he said "evening alone," he leaned hard on the words.

Seeing that I hadn't agreed, Winona frowned, then said, "I know those projects are your life's work. But you have to trust Silas."

"He came late, but he catches on well, and he's willing to put in the effort. With me overseeing things, none of your work will go to waste."

She paused, then added, "The frontier posting is hard enough. I don't want you worrying about the projects here on top of it."

Listen past the words.

Every syllable was for my own good, all concern for me, but strung together it meant one thing: stop clinging to the lab's projects and get out clean tomorrow.

I set down my chopsticks, pulled a tissue and wiped my mouth, and said evenly, "Worrying won't be a problem. Because I won't be handing over a single project."

"They're all my life's work. So I'm taking every one of them with me."