Chapter 2

Once the door closed, I put the ring in a drawer.

The food on the table filled two garbage bags.

I pulled the cream pasta I'd made for him out of the fridge and threw it in with the rest.

While clearing the cabinet, the stack of photos he'd rescued from the trash slipped onto the floor.

I sorted them by year, boxed them up with the wedding album, and wrote his name on the lid.

Once my laptop booted, I listed our joint properties, savings, debts, and the equity held in each of our names.

For the first three years after the company was founded, every account passed through my hands.

I'd sold the jewelry my parents left me to make payroll for our first employees.

Later, Evan told me to come home. He said the company didn't need a husband and wife both front-and-center, and so I became unpaid back-office support—no title, no salary.

At three in the morning, the first draft of the divorce agreement came off the printer.

I signed my name, and my phone screen lit up.

Vivian had sent a photo and a fifty-nine-second voice message.

In the photo, Evan was asleep on his office couch, a woman's trench coat draped over him.

I tapped the voice message.

"Claire, Evan was handling the fallout all night, and his stomach's acting up again. I made him some chicken soup. He just fell asleep. Please don't be angry with him—yesterday was all my fault. If you need to blame someone, blame me. Don't make things harder for him."

She'd sent me messages like this before.

Sometimes it was two coffees. Sometimes it was a tie Evan had left in her car.

Every time I asked, she'd apologize first and then urge me to trust my husband.

I deleted the voice message and blocked her.

I blocked Evan's calls, WhatsApp, and email, too.

At nine in the morning, I emailed my resignation to HR.

The HR manager called me back almost immediately. "Mrs. Caldwell, there's no official employment record for you in our system. We can't process you as a regular departing employee."

"The procurement reviews, administrative budgets, and vendor settlements I've been handling all these years—stop them all starting today. Please keep this email on file."

"But Mr. Caldwell hasn't told us anything about a handover."

"That's his problem."

A pause on the other end. "Could we wait until Mr. Caldwell is back? A few of those older projects you've been handling—no one else can pick them up."

"Have them follow protocol."

After hanging up, I packed a single suitcase.

My own documents, papers my parents had left me, a few clothes, and some old ledgers took up most of the space.

I left behind every piece of jewelry Evan had ever bought me.

Toward evening, the lock clicked.

The first thing he saw when he came in was the suitcase. Then he noticed half the closet was empty.

"Why did you block me?"

"There's no reason for us to stay in touch anymore."

"I was harsh last night. We can talk through this."

He stepped in front of the suitcase. "I've made the marriage public. I agreed to bring you to the anniversary gala. What else do you want from me?"

I laid the divorce papers on the coffee table.

"Sign."