CHAPTER TWO LANA #2
Solange is the only person from my old life who survived the transition.
Everyone else—Gabriel's colleagues, the society wives who pretended friendship while cataloging my inadequacies, the couple-friends who were really Gabriel's friends and I was just the accessory who came with him—they all evaporated after his death.
Some sent condolence cards with messages so generic they could have been printed. Others just disappeared.
Solange stayed. Showed up at the estate three days after Gabriel died with groceries and the ability to sit in a room with me without needing me to say anything.
She'd met Gabriel exactly once, at a charity gala, and disliked him immediately.
"That man treats you like a trophy he's waiting to cash in," she'd said.
I'd defended him then. Habit. Fear. The same reason I defended him to myself for five years.
Now she's my partner in the foundation I built with my inheritance money. Blood money, some part of me thinks. Guilt money. But Solange insists it's justice money. "You survived him," she'd said when I pitched the idea five months ago. "Other women should get that chance too."
Setting up a proper nonprofit required a board—legal necessity for 501(c)(3) status.
Solange helped me assemble one: seven people with the expertise and connections we needed.
Thomas Whitmore, a former executive with foundation experience, serves as board chair.
Diana Corbett brings financial oversight and donor relations.
Stephen Walsh joined three months ago with nonprofit management background.
The others—a trauma psychologist, a family law attorney, a retired social worker, and a community advocate—meet monthly, keep me accountable, lend credibility to what might otherwise look like a widow's guilt project.
They don't ask me the question I see in their eyes sometimes: did you push him?
They just help me build something that matters.
A foundation that provides financial support and legal resources to women leaving abusive marriages. Emergency housing. Safety planning. Divorce attorneys who work pro bono. Everything I wish I'd had before Gabriel fell.
Or before I pushed him.
The uncertainty tastes like copper.
I spend the evening preparing for tomorrow's donor lunch the way I used to prepare for Gabriel's business dinners: research the attendee, memorize relevant talking points, choose an outfit that communicates competence without threatening, practice the smile that makes people want to write checks.
Except I'm doing it for myself now. For women who need what I'm offering. That should feel different.
It does feel different. Just not in ways I know how to articulate yet.
At 11 PM, I take two sleeping pills—prescribed, legal, barely effective—and go to bed.
Sleep comes in fragments. I dream about the terrace, the rain, Gabriel's face as he fell.
In the dream, I'm standing where I stood that night, but when I look down at my hands, they're covered in something dark. Blood? Rain? The dream won't clarify.
I wake at 3 AM, palms pressed flat against the mattress, my heart racing.
The ceiling fan rotates overhead, rhythmic and pointless.
I count the rotations until my pulse returns to normal.
Eighty-seven rotations. I've gotten good at counting things.
Steps, rotations, minutes until I can pretend to be human again.
Thursday arrives whether I'm ready or not.
I dress for the donor lunch in charcoal—a concession to Solange—and decide to drive instead of taking the subway.
I rarely use my car, but today the thought of crowded trains and close quarters feels unbearable.
The drive to the foundation office in Midtown takes longer than the subway would, but the contained space of my car feels safer somehow.
The office is small, just three rooms in a building that used to be garment district warehouses before gentrification turned them into nonprofits and tech startups. But it's ours. The desk I sit at is mine. The mission statement on the wall was written by me and Solange over wine and determination.
Freedom Foundation: Because Leaving Should Be an Option, Not a Miracle.
Solange is already there when I arrive, dressed in a burgundy blazer that makes her look simultaneously fierce and approachable. She studies me when I walk in, takes in the charcoal dress, raises an eyebrow.
"Still basically black."
"You said charcoal was acceptable."
"I said it would be progress. I didn't say it would be impressive." She hands me coffee. "Baby steps."
I take it—black, the way I drink it now that Gabriel isn't around to insist I add cream and sugar because "black coffee isn't feminine."
Solange settles into her desk chair and pulls up her notes. "Anyway, the donor arrives at noon. Tech guy, thirty-four, made his fortune in cybersecurity. Interested in funding our legal aid expansion."
"Why us?" I ask. "There are bigger domestic violence organizations with better track records."
"Because I told him you're Gabriel Pope's widow and you're using your husband's money to help other women escape marriages like yours." She says it matter-of-factly, like she's reciting our address. "He finds that compelling."
I should be angry that she's using my tragedy as a marketing tool. But she's right—it is compelling. And if my pain can be converted into someone else's freedom, isn't that the whole point?
"What's his name?" I ask.
"Daniel Torres. MIT grad, built his company from scratch, sold it for eight figures. Single. No scandal. Clean record." She pauses. "Also, he's attractive. Just thought you should know."
"Why would I need to know that?"
"Because you're human and you've been dead for five months and maybe noticing that someone is attractive would be good for you."
"I'm not interested in dating."
"I didn't say date him. I said notice him. There's a difference." She pulls out the meeting notes, ends the conversation before I can argue. "He's interested in funding three full-time attorneys. That's huge for us. We need this."
The meeting happens in the foundation's conference room—a generous term for the room with a table and six chairs—and Daniel Torres is exactly what Solange described.
Attractive in a specific way: expensive watch, understated suit, the kind of confidence that comes from building something from nothing.
He shakes my hand, offers condolences about Gabriel that sound rehearsed but not insincere, and listens while Solange and I present our vision for expansion.
He asks good questions. Wants to know about success rates, overhead costs, how we vet attorneys, what safeguards we have against fraud. I answer them all, and somewhere during the presentation, I realize I'm not performing. I'm just... talking. About something I care about. Something that matters.
When the meeting ends, he commits to funding two attorneys for the first year, with the possibility of expanding if outcomes meet expectations.
"This is important work," he says, standing to leave. He looks at me directly when he says it, and there's something in his eyes that might be respect. "I'm glad you're doing it."
After he leaves, Solange grins. "That went well. And you noticed he was attractive, right?"
"I noticed he might fund our expansion."
"Sure. That's what you noticed." She's still grinning when she adds, "You were good in there. You were confident and present. I haven't seen you like that in months."
"I had a purpose."
"Maybe you should find more purposes." She leans against her desk, expression shifting from teasing to serious. "How are you really doing, Lana?"
"I'm fine."
"You said that on the phone yesterday and it was a lie then too."
I consider telling her about the invitation. About going back to The Dominion on Friday, tomorrow. About the camera I looked at and the way being watched felt less like violation and more like being seen. But I don't know how to explain it without sounding damaged in ways that would worry her.
"I'm managing," I say instead. "Some days are harder than others."
"And therapy? You're still going?"
"Twice a week. Dr. Cross thinks I'm making progress."
"What does progress look like?"
Good question. I've been asking Dr. Cross the same thing.
"It looks like showing up to donor meetings," I say. "And remembering to eat. And not spending all day wondering if I killed my husband."
Solange's face does something complicated. We don't talk about this often—the uncertainty, the gaps in my memory, the way the police ruled Gabriel's death accidental, but I can't shake the feeling that I'm guilty of something even if I don't remember what.
"You defended yourself," she says finally. "However it happened, you were defending yourself."
"You don't know that."
"I know Gabriel. I know what he was capable of. And I know you wouldn't have pushed him unless you had to."
I want to believe her. But belief requires certainty, and certainty is the one thing I don't have.
I leave the office at 3 PM, drive back to my apartment through traffic that barely registers, spend the evening the same way I spent yesterday: reading without comprehending, eating without tasting, existing without quite living.
At 9 PM, I take out the invitation again. Read it one more time.
This Friday, 8 PM.
Tomorrow.
I should cancel. Tell Lucien Armitage I'm not feeling well, that I'm not ready, that going back to The Dominion strips away the carefully built walls I need to survive.
But I don't cancel.
Instead, I go to my closet and pull out the black dress I wore last time. Hold it up to the light. Consider whether I should wear the same thing or choose something different. Whether repetition makes me seem consistent or pathetic.
In the end, it doesn't matter. I'm going. The dress is just the costume I'll wear while I figure out why I need to be watched to feel real.