“Over breakfast tomorrow? After dessert? In a neat little envelope, once you’d squeezed one more anniversary out of my ignorance?”
He opened his mouth and closed it.
Emily looked irritated now, which was almost funny. As if my grief were complicating her evening.
I took off my wedding ring.
I didn’t throw it. That would have been drama for his benefit.
I just placed it in his hand and folded his fingers over it.
“Don’t bother coming home,” I said. “Send the divorce papers. Text me the address where you want your things shipped.”
His eyes filled. “Mercy — ”
“I mean it.”
Then I looked at Emily.
For the first time, really looked.
She was beautiful, pregnant, and stupid enough to think she was special because a liar had chosen her next.
I felt no urge to fight with her. If she wants to believe she has won, that was up to her.
Some lessons arrive gift-wrapped in another woman’s loss, and people still do not recognize them until much later.
So I just said, “Congratulations. You can have him without having to hide anymore.”
Then I turned and walked away before either of them could answer.
I booked the next flight home from an airport bar with shaking hands and mascara running down my face.
The bartender said the drinks were on him. God bless people like that.
On the plane home, I sat by the window and watched the lights of the city fall away beneath me.
My reflection in the glass looked ghostly and strange. I kept waiting to feel rage, or hysteria, or the urge to call him and scream until my throat bled.
Instead, I felt hollow.
Like something had been carved out, and the air was rushing through where it used to live.
I got home after midnight.
The house still smelled faintly of Daniel’s cologne from that morning.
That did it.
