Chapter 39
‘It was not in her nature, however, to increase her vexations by dwelling on them.’
Three weeks later, Rhiannon, Conor and I turned into the driveway of Chase’s house. I held my breath, expecting to see his car still parked outside, but it wasn’t. He’d kept to the agreement: out of the house while I collected the rest of my belongings.
It was a clear day, not a cloud in sight.
We were all in dark sunglasses, Conor in his arty Wayfarers, Rhiannon and I in Top Gun aviators.
Our uniform was black T-shirts and jeans.
SWAT team. The plan was simple: get in, pack up, unload at mine, then head to O’Flynn’s Bar and get absolutely rat-arsed.
I parked right by the front door. Quick getaway mode.
Rocky was first out, bounding into the garden. Squirrel patrol was on.
‘I’ll go in first,’ said Conor, holding out his hand for the key.
‘Thanks,’ I said, handing over the set I’d had sitting at the bottom of my suitcase since I’d left.
Rhiannon linked arms with me as we followed. I braced.
The house looked exactly as it had when I left.
Too clean. Too composed. Like it had been stage-managed for a photo shoot.
Architectural Digest, ‘California Dreaming’ edition, still lay on top of the magazine rack.
The air smelled of wood polish and stale Marlboro Golds.
Through the French doors, the pool glittered under a postcard-blue sky.
‘Bejesus,’ said Conor, taking it all in. ‘Posh, uptight lair. Can’t really picture you living here, Florence.’
‘Me neither,’ I said. ‘Give me a shoebox in North Beach any day.’
We laughed. That helped.
‘Come on!’ called Rhiannon from the kitchen. She was already in there, pulling open cupboards like a woman possessed. ‘Ooooh nice china. There’s a whole set.’
Before I could stop her, she was stacking gold-rimmed plates covered in Cartier leopards onto the counter like she was working a floor shift at Harrods.
I looked at them. Flashback to a Thanksgiving eve supper. Chicken wrapped in prosciutto, carefully plated on those same dishes. Chase’s friends too coked out to eat, stubbing out cigarettes into the Martha Stewart meal I’d spent all afternoon making.
‘What next?’ Rhiannon asked, adding soup bowls to the pile.
Conor appeared with boxes and a stack of old newspapers.
‘Um… maybe we leave it all? I don’t need this stuff.’
Rhiannon opened another cupboard. Ten crystal decanters glinted inside like trophies.
‘No way. We are not leaving this all to that feckin’ psycho. These are yours.’
That became her mantra as we worked through every room. Rhiannon led the charge. Conor and I packed and wrapped. To her, it was an adrenaline-fuelled shopping spree. To me, it was a thousand paper cuts of memory.
While Rhiannon and Conor debated whether or not the cast bronze Egyptian head on my bedside table was ‘tasteful’ or ‘haunted,’ I slipped into the closet.
On the top shelf, under two sweaters, I found it. The white leather wedding album, our initials intertwined in gold on the corner.
I sat on the floor and opened it.
Page one: me in my dress, grinning like I’d just won the lottery, waiting to leave for the church with Dad, all hopeful and naive.
Page two: Chase. Tanned and tailored.
‘We could barbecue it. Give it the Viking funeral it deserves,’ said Conor, appearing beside me.
I shut it. Shoved it under the shoe rack.
‘Not even worth the match,’ I said.
Conor slid back a cedar panel and let out a low whistle.
‘Christ. How many suits does he own?’
Upper rail: white and blue shirts, all identically pressed. Lower rail: the suit collection. Bespoke. Immaculate. There had to be fifty. Even at my wifely peak, I’d only had ten per cent of the wardrobe space.
‘Check this out,’ I said, pulling open a mirrored door.
Inside: racks of shoes, rows of silk ties, Italian leather belts. It was a clothes shrine to narcissism.
Conor stood blinking. ‘Macy’s eat your heart out.’
‘More Nordstrom, private tailoring really.’
‘Conor, take this out, will you?’ Rhiannon called, suitcase in hand.
He took it. She picked up a pile of fluffy white towels. ‘See you in the car?’
I nodded. ‘Thanks. Won’t be a minute.’
I stood in the bedroom. The bed was made. The same bed that had housed all the silences, late-night coke paranoia, and fragmentation of a marriage.
I turned to leave. Then stopped.
Back in the closet, I flicked on the light.
It didn’t take long to find the suit. It was Chase’s favourite: navy linen.
Pale blue shirt. Red paisley tie. I laid them out carefully on his side of the bed.
Tied a proper Windsor knot. Found his deerskin loafers, slid them just under the hem of the trousers.
It looked like a man waiting for something. Like a wax figure at a presidential museum.
Then I went to the bathroom. Found the nail scissors.
Snip. Snip. Snip.
I cut the tie into inch-wide slices. Then the shirt. Then the suit. I used my hands to rip the fabric further–slashing, tearing, until the fine linen and cotton were nothing but tatters.
‘Florence?’ Rhiannon called.
‘Coming!’
My heart was hammering. I grabbed a black pen from the bedside drawer.
On one shoe I scrawled: FUCK.
On the other: YOU.