13. Odette
— ? —
Odette
The flower shop on Madison Avenue smells like grief and hope in equal measure.
I come here every Tuesday now, while Elliott is at work. It’s the one hour of the week that belongs to no one but me, and I’ve started to guard it like something precious.
Today I’m buying peonies. Pale pink ones, just starting to open, their petals still curled tight around their centers like fists reluctant to let go. They remind me of myself, somehow. Closed off for so long. Just starting to unfurl.
The shop is quiet this afternoon. Just me and the owner, a tiny woman named Helen who never asks questions and always gives me an extra stem for free. I’m standing at the counter, counting out cash, when the bell above the door chimes.
I don’t turn around. There’s no reason to. This is a flower shop in the middle of Manhattan, people come and go all day.
Then a hand closes around my sleeve.
“You.”
I know the voice before I see the face. I’ve been waiting for this, in a way. Dreading it and expecting it in equal measure.
I turn slowly.
Margaux looks different than she did in Florida.
Thinner. Paler. The confidence that radiated off her at that breakfast table has curdled into something desperate, something hunted.
She’s wearing a designer dress that probably cost more than most people’s rent, but it hangs on her frame like she’s lost weight since she bought it.
Her hair, blonde and perfect in the Keys, is pulled back in a hasty ponytail that does nothing to hide the dark circles under her eyes.
She’s holding a single ranunculus in her other hand, pale yellow, already crushed from how tightly her fingers are gripping the stem.
“You took him back,” she says.
I look down at her hand on my sleeve. She follows my gaze, seems to realize what she’s doing, and lets go. But she doesn’t step back. She stands there, too close, her breath coming fast, her eyes wild.
“I didn’t take anything,” I say quietly.
“He’s calling me all hours of the day and night. Showing up at my apartment. Sending flowers, jewelry, promises.” Her voice cracks. “He told me it was over. He told me he was choosing me. And then the second he found out you were pregnant, I stopped existing.”
“I know.”
“You know?” She laughs, high and brittle. “You know what it feels like to be thrown away like garbage? To have someone look right through you like you aren’t even there?”
“Yes.” I hold her gaze. “I know exactly what that feels like.”
She flinches. I watch the words land, watch her process them, watch something flicker across her face that might be recognition or might just be rage.
“This is your fault,” she says, but there’s less conviction in it now. “If you’d just let him go, if you’d just signed the papers and walked away, none of this would have happened.”
“I did sign the papers. I did walk away. He’s the one who won’t accept it.”
“Because of the baby.” She spits the word like a curse. “The legitimate heir. That’s all he cares about. The Fairbanks bloodline. The family name. He doesn’t love you. He’s never loved you. He just wants what’s growing inside you.”
“I know that too.”
The ranunculus in her hand is shredded now, yellow petals falling to the floor like confetti at a funeral. She doesn’t seem to notice.
“Then why?” Her voice breaks. “Why are you doing this? Why are you letting him chase you? Why don’t you just disappear, go somewhere he can’t find you, let’s both be free of him?”
I set my peonies on the counter. Helen is watching us with careful eyes, her hand hovering near the phone, but I give her a small shake of my head. This isn’t going to escalate. I won’t let it.
“Margaux.” I keep my voice soft. Not cruel, not cutting. Just soft. “I’m not your enemy.”
“Of course you are. You’re the reason he left me.”
“No.” I take a step toward her, and she takes a step back, like my gentleness scares her more than anger would.
“Laurence is the reason he left you. Just like he’s the reason I spent fifteen years feeling invisible in my own marriage.
You and I, we aren’t on opposite sides. We’re two women he used.
Two women he lied to. Two women he made promises he never intended to keep. ”
She stares at me. The wildness in her eyes is fading, replaced by something rawer. Something that looks almost like grief.
“He said he loved me.” Her voice is small now. Childlike. “He said I was the only one. He said you didn’t matter.”
“I know.”
“Was any of it real?”
I think about the question. Really think about it, the way I’ve been thinking about it for weeks now.
“I don’t think Laurence knows how to love,” I finally say. “I think he knows how to want. He knows how to possess. He knows how to perform. But love, real love, the kind that sees the other person clearly and chooses them anyway, I don’t think he’s capable of that.”
Margaux’s face crumples. Just for a second, just a flash of something broken before she pulls herself back together.
“I hate you,” she says, but there’s no heat in it.
“I know.”
“I want to hate you.”
“That’s easier than hating him.”
She looks down at her hand. Sees the destroyed flower for the first time. Opens her fingers and lets the ruined petals fall to the floor.
“What am I supposed to do now?” she asks. “He won’t leave me alone. He keeps calling, keeps showing up, keeps acting like I still belong to him even though he threw me away. And I can’t make him stop. I can’t make any of this stop.”
“You could help me.”
The words are out before I plan them. I didn’t come here intending to recruit Margaux to my side. I didn’t even know she’d be here. But the look on her face, raw and drowning and desperate for a way out, makes me think that maybe this is exactly what needed to happen.
“Help you?” She laughs, but it’s hollow. “Why would I help you?”
“Because we want the same thing. We both want Laurence out of our lives. We both want to be free of him. And together, we know things about him that he doesn’t want anyone else to know.”
She stills.
“I’m not asking you to decide right now,” I continue. “I’m just asking you to think about it. Think about who your real enemy is. Think about who threw you away and who’s standing here, telling you that you deserve better.”
The flower shop is silent. Helen has retreated to the back room, giving us privacy. The only sound is the soft hum of the refrigerators keeping the flowers fresh.
Margaux picks up a petal from the floor. Rolls it between her fingers. Crushes it.
“I don’t trust you,” she says.
“You shouldn’t. You don’t know me. But I’m telling you the truth, which is more than Laurence ever did.”
She looks at me for a long moment. Then she turns and walks toward the door, her heels clicking against the tile.
She pauses with her hand on the handle.
“You really don’t want him back?” she asks without turning around.
“I’d rather set myself on fire.”
Something that might be a laugh escapes her. Or maybe a sob. It’s hard to tell.
She leaves without another word.
I stand there for a moment, listening to the silence, feeling something shift in the air around me. A piece moving on a board I didn’t know I was playing on.
Helen emerges from the back room. “Everything okay, dear?”
“Yes.” I pick up my peonies, press a twenty into her palm, and head for the door. “Everything is exactly how it needs to be.”
Outside, Margaux is already gone. Disappeared into the crowd like she was never there.
But I know she was. And I know I’ve started something.
I turn toward home, peonies cradled against my chest, and that’s when I see it.
Across Madison, half a block down, a black SUV idling in a loading zone with the engine running, its windows tinted too dark to see through, and no one getting out.
The same one that was parked outside my building yesterday morning.
The same one, I’m almost certain, that sat across from the OB office last week, that I told myself was nothing.
I make myself keep walking. I don’t look again.
But my skin has gone cold under the October sun, and I understand, the way you understand a thing your body knew before your mind would let it, that Laurence hasn’t been leaving me alone at all.
He’s just gotten quieter about it. He’s watching.
He’s been watching for a while. And a man who watches is a man who’s deciding what to do.