Chapter 3
When I was finally discharged, my best friend, Megan Hughes, came to pick me up.
She was fuming as she helped me carry my bags, muttering curses the whole time.
"Laura, didn't I tell you Sophia was trouble? Seriously, what kind of normal neighbor keeps running to someone else's husband in the middle of the night?"
I leaned against the car window, my throat still sore, my voice hoarse and slow.
"Don't blame her," I said.
"Are you seriously still defending her?" Megan shot back.
"I'm not defending her," I said, watching the trees race past outside. "Eric is the only one I blame now. However hard she tried, she could never have gotten into our marriage without his permission."
Megan paused, then fell silent.
After a while, she gently squeezed my hand.
"So, are you really going through with the divorce this time?" Megan asked.
"I really am," I replied, firm and steady.
When I said it, I felt strangely at peace.
It was like the fever had finally broken, or like I had finally cut out a wound that kept getting infected.
When I went home to pack up my things, Eric was there.
When he saw me dragging my suitcase into the bedroom, his expression soured.
"You're really doing this?" he asked.
"When have I ever joked about something like this?" I shot back.
He followed me in, blocking me by grabbing my suitcase.
"Laura, I already apologized that day," he said.
"I already told you, it's too late," I said.
"Are you really going to break up our family over some outsider?" he shot back.
I paused, my hand on the zipper, and looked up at him.
"I didn't tear this family apart. You went to take care of another woman when I needed you most. Eric, putting this on me now is pointless."
He was left speechless, and after a few seconds, his tone turned cold.
"Fine. If you want to move out, I won't stop you. But don't act on impulse and then crash at a hotel for two days before you come back.
"We're thirty years old, not lovesick kids. Stop throwing the word divorce around like it means nothing."
I gave a wry smile.
"Relax. I'm not coming back," I said.
As I pulled out the last stack of clothes from the closet, my fingers brushed against a small box tucked away in the back of the drawer.
Inside were the receipt for our wedding rings and a handwritten note from him.
He'd slipped it to me the year we got married.
It said: [If you ever get sick, or feel wronged, or want to cry, or need to yell about something, come to me first. I'll be the one who comforts you.]
The handwriting was still there.
But the man behind those words wasn't here anymore.
I crumpled up the note and tossed it into the trash.
As I dragged my suitcase through the living room, I noticed an empty spot on the key rack by the door.
Our spare key was missing.
I stopped and turned to him. "Where's the key?"
Eric's eyes flickered.
"What key?" he asked.
"The spare key," I said.
He didn't say a word.
And then it hit me.
"You gave it to Sophia?" I asked.
"She's always forgetting her keys, so I just lent it to her for a couple days," he said.
"Seriously, a couple days?" I laughed. "Eric, did you even bother to ask me before handing our home key to another woman?"
"Don't make it such a big deal. She was just borrowing it," he said.
"Well, you'd better hope she really is just borrowing it," I said.
I dragged my suitcase toward the door.
Eric called after me, "Laura!"
I didn't look back.
As the elevator doors slid shut, I heard him swear from inside the apartment.
This was probably the first time he realized I wasn't just being dramatic.
I moved into a long-term rental apartment near my office.
The place was small, one bedroom with a living room. The window faced the wall of the next building, so the light was poor, and the kitchen was so cramped I could barely turn around.
But the first night I stayed there, I actually slept like a log.
No more doorbell ringing in the middle of the night.
No one dropping by out of the blue, asking for favors.
No more heart sinking every time my phone lit up.
The next day, I showed up at my old workplace.
Actually, it was more like returning.
I majored in interior design in college, and after graduation, I worked at a design firm, becoming lead designer in just two years. When Eric started his own business, I quit to support him from home, doing some freelance work on the side.
And just like that, three years went by.
Over those three years, I stayed with him through the worst of it, helping him chase investors, fix contracts, run down materials, and put together reports, and I turned myself into a woman who was always available.
Looking back on it now, the whole thing was almost funny, in a sad way.
Once a woman got too good at being accommodating, everyone assumed she was born to be the accommodating one.
When I walked in, my old boss, Helen Adams, didn't waste a word on small talk and slapped a project file down in front of me.
"You coming back or not?" she said, straight to the point.
I opened the file, and it was a big job, the Southside commercial street renovation.
Big money, big publicity, and everyone wanted in.
I looked up at her.
"Aren't you worried I'm out of practice?" I asked.
"Worried? Back when you ran the team, your people looked at you the way a rookie looks at a drill sergeant," Helen said, sliding a coffee across to me with a smirk. "What, did marriage turn you soft?"
Helen's words stung a little, but they also made me want to laugh.
"I'm not washed up," I replied.
"Then come back," she said, pointing at the contract. "You'll get market rate, plus project bonuses. Laura, you were never meant to be stuck at home."