6. Odette
— ? —
Odette
The silence stretches out like a wire pulled tight enough to snap.
Laurence stands in the doorway with coffee dripping down his shirt, his face the color of old paper. Margaux has gone very still beside him, the little boy pressed into her side and wide-eyed, her eyes darting between me and the man she thought she knew.
I take another sip of my coffee. I have all the time in the world.
“Odette.” Laurence finally finds his voice. It comes out strangled, like someone has their hands around his throat. “What are you doing here? How did you even...”
“Find you?” I set my cup down with a soft click against the saucer. “It wasn’t difficult. You left confirmation emails in your desk. Very sloppy, Laurence. I expected better from you.”
“This isn’t what it looks like.”
I almost laugh. Almost, but I don’t have the energy for it.
“Really? Because it looks like you’re on vacation with your ex-wife and the child you forgot to mention you have.
It looks like you told me you had a business trip when you were actually flying to paradise with your other family.
It looks like you’ve been lying to me for years, maybe longer, while I sat at home wondering why my husband didn’t love me anymore.
” I fold my hands on the table. “So please. Tell me what it actually is.”
Margaux moves first. She stalks forward, her bare feet slapping against the tile, and plants herself between me and Laurence like she’s protecting him from a threat.
“I don’t know who you think you are,” she says, “but you need to leave. Now. This is our home.”
“Your home?” I tilt my head, studying her. Up close she’s prettier than her photos. Sharper, too. There’s a cruelty in the set of her mouth that the camera didn’t capture. “This is a rental. I checked. The lease is in his name. Not yours.”
“We’re together. That’s what matters.”
“Together.” I turn the word over like a stone. “Is that what he told you? That you were together?”
“We are.” Her voice rises, brittle at the edges. “We have a child. We have a life. We’ve been planning our future for years while you sat in your Manhattan penthouse pretending not to notice.”
“Margaux.” Laurence’s voice is sharp. Warning. “Stop.”
“No.” She whirls on him, the little boy flinching and starting to cry at the raised voices.
“You told me she didn’t matter. You told me your marriage was over years ago.
You said you were only staying for appearances, for the society bullshit, that you hadn’t touched her in forever. Was that a lie?”
Laurence doesn’t answer. He’s staring at me with something that looks almost like fear.
“Was it a lie?” Margaux demands again.
I smile. It isn’t a kind smile.
“Why don’t you tell her, Laurence?” I say. “Tell her about four months ago. Tell her about our anniversary.”
“Odette, please.”
“Tell her how you came home late and smelling like whiskey. Tell her how you climbed into our bed and reached for me like it was an obligation. Tell her how you fucked me without saying a word and then rolled over and checked your phone before I even caught my breath.” I lean forward slightly.
“Tell her what you were doing four months ago, while she thought you hadn’t touched me in years. ”
Margaux’s face changes. The cruelty drains out of it, replaced by something rawer. Something wounded.
“Laurence,” she says slowly. “What’s she talking about?”
“Nothing. She’s trying to manipulate you, she’s just...”
“I’m pregnant.”
The words land like a grenade.
Margaux takes a step back. The little boy is crying now, frightened, his face pressed against her hip, but she doesn’t seem to notice. She’s staring at me like I’ve just pulled out a weapon.
“What?”
“Pregnant. Just past four months.” I touch my stomach briefly, a gesture I’m not sure I mean. “Ask him what he was doing four months ago. Ask him how a woman he supposedly hadn’t touched in years ended up carrying his child.”
“That isn’t...” Margaux shakes her head. “That isn’t possible. He said... you said...”
“I know what he said.” My voice is flat. Clinical. The way I get when I’m trying not to feel anything. “He told you the marriage was dead. He told you we were just keeping up appearances. He told you whatever you needed to hear to keep spreading your legs for him.”
“Don’t speak to her like that.” Laurence finally moves, stepping forward with his hands raised like he’s approaching a wild animal. “Odette, this isn’t the way to handle this.”
“Then what’s the way, Laurence?” I stand up.
My chair scrapes against the tile with a sound that makes everyone flinch.
“Because I tried the other ways. I tried being patient. I tried being understanding. I tried planning a vow renewal so you’d remember that you have a wife, and instead you sent a sex tape to play in front of everyone we know. ”
“I didn’t...”
“Don’t.” I hold up my hand. “Don’t lie to me again. Not now. Not about this.”
The terrace goes quiet except for the little boy’s crying. Margaux is looking at Laurence like she’s never seen him before. And maybe she hasn’t. Maybe she’s been looking at a mask this whole time, the same mask I looked at for years, charming and handsome and completely empty underneath.
“You told me she was nothing,” Margaux says. Her voice is thick. “You told me she was a ghost. A placeholder. You said you stayed because of money, because of status, because leaving would be too complicated. You never said...” She chokes on the words. “You never said you were still fucking her.”
“It was one time,” Laurence says desperately. “One time, Margaux, and it didn’t mean anything, I swear.”
“One time.” Margaux laughs, high and ugly. “One time, and now she’s pregnant. One time, and now everything you promised me is a lie.”
“It isn’t like that.”
“Then what’s it like?”
I reach into my bag. My fingers close around the manila envelope I’ve been carrying since New York, the one I grabbed from my lawyer’s office on the way to the airport. I pull it out and slide it across the table toward Laurence.
“Divorce papers,” I say. “You wanted out. Here’s out.”
Laurence stares at the envelope like it might explode.
“Odette, let’s talk about this. Let’s go somewhere private, just the two of us, and figure out...”
“There’s nothing to figure out.” I straighten my spine. Feel the vertebrae stack up one by one, turning me into something hard and tall and untouchable. “Sign them or don’t sign them. It doesn’t matter. I’m done either way.”
“The baby.”
“Is none of your concern.”
“It’s my baby too.”
“Is it?” I look pointedly at the child still screaming on Margaux’s hip. “You seem to have plenty of babies to worry about. I’m sure you won’t miss one more.”
“Odette.”
“I’m leaving now.” I pick up my bag. Smooth my blouse.
Check my reflection in the terrace door to make sure I still look like a woman in control and not a woman falling apart.
“You can reach me through my lawyer if you have questions about the divorce. Otherwise, I’d prefer if you didn’t contact me at all. ”
I start walking toward the door. Behind me I hear Margaux’s voice rising, demanding answers, demanding explanations, demanding to know how many other lies Laurence has told her. I hear Laurence pleading with both of us, his voice cracking under the weight of his own deceptions.
Then I hear the crash.
I turn just in time to see the coffee carafe shatter against the wall behind Laurence’s head. Margaux is standing there with her arm still extended, her face twisted with rage, the little boy sobbing and clutching at her legs.
“You lied to my face,” she screams. “You lied to me while she was carrying your child. You told me I was the only one. You told me we had a future. And the whole time you were going home to her, touching her, putting a baby inside her.”
“Margaux, calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down!” She grabs a glass from the table and hurls it at him. He ducks. It shatters against the doorframe. “You destroyed my life! You made me believe in something that was never real!”
I should leave. I should walk out the door and never look back.
But I can’t help myself. I stop in the doorway and look at Margaux, really look at her, this woman who thought she was winning a prize when she was really just inheriting a curse.
“For what it’s worth,” I say quietly, “I’m sorry you got caught up in this. I know what it feels like to believe his lies.”
Margaux’s head snaps toward me. Her eyes are wild, mascara running down her cheeks, her whole body shaking with rage and grief.
“Get out,” she says. “Get out of my house.”
“It isn’t your house,” I remind her. And then, because I can’t resist, because so long spent invisible has left me with a cruelty of my own, “Nothing about him was ever yours.”
I walk out.
Elliott is waiting on the path outside, pacing back and forth like a caged animal. His head snaps up when he sees me, and something like relief floods his face.
“Are you okay? I heard screaming. I was about to come in.”
“I’m fine.” I keep walking. He falls into step beside me, matching his stride to mine. “It’s done.”
“Done?”
“I gave him the divorce papers. Margaux knows the truth. And I never have to see either of them again.”
Behind us, the sound of shattering glass. More screaming. Margaux’s voice rising to a pitch that makes dogs howl.
Elliott’s hand brushes my elbow. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.” I straighten my shoulders. Take a breath. Keep moving. “I want to get out of here. I want to go home. I want to start the rest of my life.”
He nods and doesn’t push. He just walks beside me, steady and silent, while the Florida sun beats down and my husband’s world collapses behind me.
The door clicks shut somewhere in the distance.
I don’t look back.