Chapter 7
I found the bracelet in the bottom drawer of my desk at the moment I had almost convinced myself the evening could be held together.
Not fixed—no. Fixing was premature. In my world, you stopped the bleeding first, then figured out who was at fault, and only then dealt with morality, if there was time left for it.
The children were asleep. Niki had locked herself in the bedroom.
The ring lay on my pillow like a small, metallic spit in the face, and I had been sitting in my study for twenty minutes, staring at it through the open doors of memory and forcing myself not to go upstairs, not to break down that goddamn lock, not to tell her that she wasn't taking off any rings, wasn't putting any doors between us, and wasn't saying the word divorce out loud while I still drew breath.
I didn't do it. Not because I'd gone soft.
Because Marta had asked today if I'd punished her mother.
Because Tim had looked at me as if, for the first time, he were trying on something dirty and adult to fit the word "Dad.
" Because if I snapped now, Niki would get what she perhaps didn't yet understand herself: proof that I was dangerous not only with words.
I opened the drawer behind the documents and saw gold.
A thin chain, a small garnet stone. Lara's bracelet.
No. Not just Lara's. I remembered this bracelet.
Niki had chosen it last year—spent three days deliberating, unsure, saying Lara liked red but not anything chunky, that something delicate would suit her, "like she is.
" I'd been signing papers at the time, half listening, and said: "Get the more expensive one if you can't decide.
" Niki had smiled as though I hadn't just bought my way out but shown genuine interest. God.
Sometimes the past strikes not with a major event but with a minor detail in which you suddenly see how lazy you were in love.
I picked up the bracelet. The metal was cold.
For a second a picture flashed in my fingers: Lara by the fireplace, red dress, her hand on my shoulder, her quick laugh, my own movement when I'd looked around.
Checked the doors. Checked the staircase.
No one. And kissed her. Quickly. Stupidly.
No—not stupidly. That was a lie. I was never stupid about things like that.
I knew what I was doing. I'd simply decided I could control the consequences.
The phone lay nearby.
The silence behind the bedroom door was dense, like armor.
Niki hadn't opened it. Wasn't crying loudly enough for me to hear.
That irritated me more than anything. Screaming I understood.
Tears too. Even the dishes. A woman snapping, a raw nerve, betrayal, sister, children, blood.
The logic was ugly, but it was logic. Silence was different territory.
In it, she wasn't asking me to explain anything.
Wasn't looking for me. Wasn't giving me levers.
I called Lara.
She picked up immediately. Too immediately.
"Damien?"
Her voice was quiet, strained. Not fully frightened. Lara didn't know how to be afraid gracefully when she didn't know who was watching.
"Where are you?"
"Home."
"In twenty minutes, be in your car at the service entrance to the Contour building."
"Why?"
"We need to talk."
"Can't we do this on the phone?"
"No."
She paused.
"Did Niki tell you?"
"Lara, if you ask one more question, I'll come to you myself. And then the conversation will be shorter."
"You sound like I'm the only one to blame."
I closed my eyes. Squeezed the bracelet in my fist.
"Twenty minutes."
I hung up. Then stood, put on my jacket, and left the study.
The foyer was dark. Upstairs, no light showed beneath Niki's door.
I stopped and looked up. The absurd urge to climb the stairs and knock came sudden, almost angry.
Knock. At my own bedroom. At my own wife.
Ask her to open. I smirked without sound and headed for the exit.
If someone had told me a week ago that Niki would lock me out and I'd leave without a word, I wouldn't have believed it.
Not because I thought myself a tyrant. Because I'd considered her mine. That was worse.
Lara was waiting by the service entrance to the office, wrapped in a light coat. On her cheek, beneath the foundation, a mark darkened. Niki had hit hard. Twice, if I knew my wife correctly in the state they'd driven her to. I got out of the car without killing the engine.
"Get in."
"Could you at least ask how I am?"
"No."
She flinched but got in. The cabin immediately filled with her perfume. That same sweet scent—the one that now made me want to roll down every window and freeze my skin off.
"Can you not act like I'm the enemy?" she said, fastening her seatbelt. "I'm not your enemy."
"I'm not interested right now in who you think you are."
"But you are interested in what Niki said?"
"Niki told me nothing."
Lara turned her head.
"Then how—"
I tossed the bracelet onto her lap. She looked down and went pale.
"She left it in my desk," I said. "Smart move. Didn't expect it from her."
"Are you admiring her right now?"
"Right now I'm assessing the situation."
"Of course. With you everything's a situation. Even when the woman you kissed is sitting next to you with your wife's handprints on her face."
I looked at her in a way that made her go silent.
"Don't say it like that."
"Like what?"
"'Your wife' sounds like an insult coming from you. Say it that way once more and you'll be leaving this car on foot."
She smirked. Nervously.
"There it is. It's started."
"What exactly?"
"The chivalry. Belated. Very male. First you come to me because at home your wife looks at you like a cracked icon, and then when she finds out, you suddenly remember she's a saint."
"Don't turn yourself into a revelation. You were never a temple or salvation. You were a place where no one asked me questions."
She slapped me across the face with her words, though her hand didn't move:
"And you were a man who came of his own free will."
"Yes."
She hadn't expected agreement. I saw it in her eyes.
"Yes, Lara. I came. I kissed you. I slept with you. I lied to my wife. If you need a recording for your self-esteem, feel free to turn on your voice memo. But none of that makes you my woman."
"And Niki is?"
"Niki is my wife."
"She's probably already taken off the ring, Damien."
The cabin went quiet.
"How do you know that?"
Lara realized she'd made a mistake, but you can't take words back.
"She said this morning she'd take it off."
"She told you?"
"We fought. A lot of things were said."
I watched her, and a cold anger was rising inside me.
Not jealousy. Not pity for Niki, though that was somewhere nearby too, heavy and still inconvenient.
Anger that Lara had seen Niki that morning in the state I myself should never have let anyone see her in.
Anger at myself for leaving my wife alone with the woman I'd let into our lives like a filthy draft.
"What did you say to her?"
"Didn't she tell you?"
"I'm asking you."
Lara turned to the window.
"The truth."
"You have a convenient love for truth. It usually wakes up when there's someone to finish off."
"You're not the only one who knows how to hit with words."
"I've noticed. That's why listen carefully now. Between us, it's over."
She turned slowly.
"You're serious?"
"Absolutely."
"Because Niki found out?"
"Because I'm not going to keep setting fire to a house where my children sleep."
"And before this, you thought you were lighting candles?"
"Before this, I thought I was controlling something I should never have started."
"Beautifully put. Almost a confession. Just to the wrong woman."
"I have nothing to confess to you."
She went even paler, and for a second I felt almost disgusted with myself.
Almost. Because Lara was not an innocent girl who'd been accidentally dragged in.
She knew Niki. Knew the children. Knew our house.
Knew where my wife was thin, and pressed exactly there with her manicured finger. She was her sister.
"You use people, Damien," she said quietly. "Niki, me, everyone. She's just a convenient victim, and I turned out to be an inconvenient one."
"You're wrong. You turned out to be unnecessary."
She flinched.
"I was unnecessary at the moment you were opening the door for me yourself?"
"Yes."
"Convenient."
"No. Dirty. But truth is rarely convenient."
Lara laughed. Briefly, bitterly.
"Does she know what you were like with me? Not this icy commander, but alive. Hungry. Almost happy. Does she?"
I gripped the steering wheel. Hard. So hard my knuckles ached.
"Are you trying to hurt me right now, or her?"
"Does it hurt you?"
I didn't answer.
"Exactly," she said. "It doesn't hurt you. You're not in pain—you're uncomfortable losing control. Niki closed the door, took off the ring, put my bracelet in your desk, and what infuriates you isn't that you destroyed her. It's that she made a move without your permission."
I wanted to say she was wrong. Had already opened my mouth. And didn't say it. Because for the first time in the last twenty-four hours, someone else's sentence had landed dead center. So precisely that I wanted to slam the brakes and throw Lara out of the car just for that hit.
"Get out."
"What?"
"The conversation is over."
"Damien—"
"No. Now I'll speak without diplomacy. You don't call Niki.
You don't come to the children. You don't show up at the house.
You don't write to my mother. You don't stage any forgiveness spectacles.
If you want to leave—leave. If you want to suffer—suffer quietly.
But you will not be near my family again. "
"Your family?" She smiled, and the smile already had tears in it. "Are you sure it's still yours?"
"Get out of the car."
"She won't forgive you."
"You should worry about yourself, not me."
She clenched her jaw but said nothing, because she was her sister.