Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Ido not sleep during the flight.
Every time I close my eyes, the blindfold comes off.
By the time I land at JFK, I have watched the video fourteen more times. I tell myself I am studying it, but there is nothing left to learn. My husband recognizes his ex. My husband hesitates. My husband chooses to keep kissing her.
Ivy waits beyond baggage claim wearing gray sweatpants, combat boots, and the expression of a woman prepared to commit murder.
She grabs me before I reach her.
For a few seconds, I stay rigid in her arms. Then I smell her coconut shampoo and collapse.
"I married him," I sob into her shoulder.
"I know."
"Three fucking days ago. Three fucking days.”
"I know."
"I stood in front of everybody and promised him forever while half his friends had already watched him do that, and maybe more.”
Ivy holds the back of my head. "They should be ashamed. Not you."
"Jeremy walked me down the aisle after Dad's photograph fell off the chair. He kissed my cheek."
"I am going to remove his beard one hair at a time."
"Stop trying to make me laugh."
"I'm not. I have tweezers in my purse."
I laugh anyway. It hurts so badly I start crying harder.
In the car, Ivy tells me Caleb has called her thirty-one times. Marguerite has called twelve. Jeremy sent yet another rambling apology to the group, deleted it, then claimed his account was hacked.
"Does Caleb know you're here?" I ask.
"No."
"Good."
"What do you want to do?"
The answer arrives whole. "Move out."
"Tonight?"
"Before he gets home. He knows how I felt the first time and he knows the consequences. He chose to do it anyways, so it won’t be a surprise.”
Caleb cannot get a direct flight until morning. He has offered strangers cash for their tickets and called every airline. I know because his messages appear when I turn my phone back on.
My old apartment is still empty. Caleb wanted me to move into the house before the wedding, but my lease does not end until the final day of the month. I had planned to return the keys after Maui.
Instead, I call my landlord from Ivy's car.
"You want to renew?" Mr. Bennett asks. "I thought you got married."
"So did I."
There is a pause. "I'll leave the paperwork downstairs."
The house looks indecently cheerful when we arrive. White bows still decorate the porch railing because Caleb said he wanted to leave them up until we came home. A delivery driver has stacked wedding presents inside the front hall.
Our framed wedding portrait leans against the wall.
I am laughing in the photograph. Caleb is not looking at the camera. He is looking at me.
"Turn it around," I tell Ivy.
She turns it toward the wall, but that only exposes the silver plaque on the back.
DAHLIA AND CALEB ASHBY. FOREVER BEGINS HERE.
"Who bought this?" Ivy asks.
"Marguerite."
"Of course. Even the frame has a mission statement."
We begin in the bedroom. My honeymoon clothes still hang in garment bags because I bought too much and packed too little. Caleb cleared half his closet for me when I moved in, then quietly surrendered another quarter when my dresses colonized his side.
I pull them down by the armful.
Inside his sock drawer, I find the cuff links I gave him on our wedding morning. The card remains beneath them.
Meet me at the end of the aisle. I will be the woman trying not to run because I cannot wait to reach you.
I sit on the edge of the bed.
"Do you want me to pack that?" Ivy asks.
"No."
"Leave it?"
"No."
"Those are the available options."
I tear the card once, then again. The pieces fall into the drawer.
In the hall, the doorbell rings. A florist stands outside with an enormous arrangement of tropical flowers and a card welcoming us home from paradise.
"Bad timing?" she asks after seeing my face.
"Perfect timing."
I carry the arrangement inside and set it among the wedding gifts. The orchids smell exactly like the hotel room.
I make it to the kitchen sink before I am sick again.
Ivy holds my hair, cursing Caleb with an inventiveness that would impress a sailor.
"I loved him this morning," I say when I can breathe.
"You still love him."
"Don't."
"Love does not shut off because someone becomes unworthy of it. That would make this easy."
"I need it to be easy for the next two hours."
Ivy wipes my mouth with a dish towel. "Then for two hours, he is dead to us. After that, you can decide whether to resurrect him."
We work fast. I take the furniture I owned before we moved in together, my clothes, my books, my grandmother's dishes, and the desk where I manage my event-planning business. I leave wedding gifts unopened. I leave anything Caleb bought. I leave the bed.
In the bedroom, his vows sit on the dresser beside my perfume.
I have spent my life waiting for a place that felt like home. Dahlia, you are that place.
I rip the page in half.
Then I kneel on the floor, smooth the pieces together, and put them inside my suitcase.
I hate myself for keeping them.
Ivy finds me staring at the empty closet.
"You don't have to take everything tonight."
"Yes, I do. If I leave things, he'll think I am coming back."
"Are you sure you aren't?"
I look at her.
"I'm not telling you to forgive him," she says quickly. "I am asking whether you're making permanent decisions while you have not slept in thirty hours."
"I saw him. I won’t let them break my heart again.”
"I know."
"Then don't ask me to doubt myself too."
Ivy's face crumples. "I'm sorry."
I pull her into my arms. "No. I'm sorry. You're the only person helping me."
We finish loading shortly before sunset. As I carry the final box through the kitchen, I notice the calendar hanging beside the refrigerator.
Caleb circled our wedding date in red.
BEST DAY OF MY LIFE, he wrote beneath it.
I tear the calendar from the wall.
My phone rings as I lock the front door.
CALEB.
I decline the call.
His message arrives a moment later.
I just landed. I'm going home.