Chapter 3
On Saturday afternoon, I signed the divorce papers my attorney placed in front of me.
I returned home and prepared the welcome dinner I'd promised him. The evening needed to look ordinary until I was ready to leave.
Celeste sat beside Adrian at dinner. He pulled out her chair, then poured her wine without asking what she wanted.
Her gaze traveled past me to the vaulted ceiling and the curved staircase in the foyer.
"You kept it," she said. "The house from the sketch I drew in college."
Adrian smiled. "I gave the architect your drawing. He changed a few measurements, but the design is yours."
I looked at the staircase I'd decorated every Christmas. I'd thought Adrian bought this house to build a life with me.
He'd built Celeste's dream and placed me inside it.
Adrian rose and reached for the empty wine bottle. "I'll get another one from the cellar."
As soon as he left, Celeste leaned toward me. Her smile disappeared.
"I don't want to be Adrian's wife," she said. "I only wanted to know if he'd betray you the moment I came back."
My fingers tightened around my fork.
"Now you know," I said.
Her smile returned. She'd come to test her power, and my marriage had been the thing she used to measure it.
When Adrian came back, Celeste said she needed some air and stepped onto the terrace. He watched her through the glass until she looked over her shoulder.
Then he set down the wine and followed her.
I cleared the dinner plates and went to the kitchen for dessert. Through the partly open patio door, I saw Celeste rise onto her toes and press her mouth to his.
Adrian's hands stayed at his sides for one heartbeat. Then they closed around her waist, pulling her against him.
Celeste drew back just enough to speak. "Do you still love me?"
"I never stopped."
The words stripped the last lie from our marriage. His vows, his patience, every night he'd held me after my first divorce had all existed beside that truth.
My stomach twisted, but I stayed on my feet. The kitchen clock showed nine twenty.
Forty minutes.
I took the cake from the refrigerator and reached for my mother's glass dessert plate. Celeste entered behind me before I could pick it up.
She traced its painted flowers. It was the last piece of my mother's wedding china I owned.
"Put it down," I said.
Celeste looked at my face and opened her hand.
The plate struck the tile and shattered. A piece of glass skipped across the floor and nicked her knuckle.
Adrian rushed in. His gaze moved from the broken plate to the blood on Celeste's hand.
"I was only trying to help," Celeste said. "Mara suddenly grabbed the plate from me."
"She dropped it on purpose," I said.
Adrian snatched a clean towel from the counter and wrapped it around Celeste's hand. He never looked at the pieces scattered around my shoes.
"You hurt a guest over an old plate?" His mouth tightened. "Go upstairs and calm down."
He put an arm around Celeste and led her toward the guest room. I crouched long enough to pick up one painted shard, then set it on the counter.
My mother had saved that plate through thirty years of marriage. Mine had lasted two.
Upstairs, I pulled my suitcase from the closet and removed my wedding ring. The skin beneath it looked pale and bare.
I placed the ring on Adrian's pillow and laid the signed divorce papers beneath it. I left no note.
I wheeled my suitcase into the hallway. The guest-room door stood open a few inches, and Adrian's voice stopped me before I passed it.
"Mara's too quiet tonight," he said. "Her closet was half empty yesterday."
Unease had entered his voice at last. He'd noticed the signs and chosen Celeste each time.
"Don't worry," Celeste said. "She won't leave. You married her because she knows how to endure. She'll be waiting in your bed when you go upstairs."
Neither of them heard the suitcase wheels move across the carpet.
At ten, I slipped through the side door and walked to the corner. Ben's gray sedan waited beneath a streetlamp.
I put my suitcase in the back, climbed into the passenger seat, and closed the door.
"Drive."