5. Lucille #3
“Does it? Sometimes I wonder if I’m being too generous. Other times I wonder if I’m being too harsh.” I laugh humorlessly. “Alice thinks I should have left months ago.”
“Alice is protective. She sees your pain and she wants to end it.” Florence’s eyes are knowing.
“But pain doesn’t always mean the relationship is wrong.
Sometimes it means the relationship is growing, stretching, becoming what it hasn’t been before.
The question is whether both people are willing to grow together. ”
The food arrives, pasta with fresh tomatoes for me, risotto for Florence, and we eat in comfortable silence for a few minutes.
“Thank you,” I say eventually. “For this. For being honest with me.”
“You’re my daughter now, whether the marriage survives or not. That doesn’t change.” Florence raises her glass. “To clarity, wherever it leads.”
“To clarity.”
We clink glasses, and I feel a steadiness settle in my chest. Not hope, exactly. I’ve been burned by hope too many times. But a sense of resolution. Of knowing what I need to do, even if I don’t yet know how it will end.
It’s three weeks until our anniversary.
Just three weeks to see if Hugo can become the man I need him to be.
Three weeks to decide if this marriage is worth saving.
***
I get home late afternoon to find a delivery van pulling away from the house.
On the doorstep sits a bouquet, enormous, ostentatious, the kind of arrangement that screams money rather than taste. White roses and lilies and orchids, professionally arranged in a crystal vase that probably cost more than my first car.
My heart lifts for just a moment. Hugo, I think. A gesture. An apology.
Then I read the card.
You’re better than all of this. Call me when you’re ready to move on.
- G.D.
I stare at the initials for a long moment, my brain refusing to process what my eyes are seeing.
G.D.
Ginny Davies.
She sent flowers to my home. To the house I share with my husband. A gloating little message disguised as sympathy, poison wrapped in petals.
As if she knows what I don’t. As if she’s already won a game I didn’t know we were playing.
I pick up the vase with hands that have started shaking, and I carry it through the house to the kitchen. I consider throwing it against the wall. I consider dumping it in the trash. I consider taking a photo and posting it online with a caption that would end Ginny Davies’ reputation forever.
Instead, I set it on the counter and look at it.
A shift moves through my chest.
Not sadness. I’m past sadness now. Not hurt. Hurt is too mild a word for what I feel.
What rises up from somewhere deep is older and hotter and far more dangerous.
Rage.
Pure, clarifying rage.
This woman has spent weeks inserting herself into my marriage, and I’ve taken it. I’ve been patient and quiet and understanding, making excuses for my husband and trying to see the best in a situation that has no best to see.
I’ve been a ghost in my own life.
And Ginny Davies has the audacity, the absolute audacity, to send flowers to my home, telling me to call her when I’m ready to give up.
I’m not ready to give up.
I’m ready to fight.
The front door opens behind me. Hugo’s footsteps in the foyer, his keys in the bowl, his voice calling my name.
“Lucille? I came home early. I thought we could…” He stops in the kitchen doorway, sees the flowers. “What’s that?”
I turn to face him, and whatever is in my expression makes him take a step back.
“It’s a message,” I say, and my voice is steady as steel. “From your collaborator.”
I hand him the card and watch his face as he reads it. Watch the confusion turn to understanding turn to what looks almost like fear.
“She sent this here?” His voice is barely a whisper. “To our house?”
“To our house.” I take the card back and tear it in half, then in quarters, letting the pieces fall to the floor.
“So here’s what’s going to happen, Hugo.
You’re going to do your interview. You’re going to finish whatever obligations the label has trapped you in.
And then you’re going to make a choice.”
“Lucille…”
“Her or me. The career that lets her into your life, or the marriage you swore to protect.” I step closer, close enough to see the panic in his eyes.
“Our anniversary is in three weeks. I expect you to be here. I expect you to show up, really show up, and prove to me that I’m not wasting my life waiting for a man who’s already chosen someone else. ”
“I haven’t chosen her. I would never…”
“Then prove it.” I hold his gaze, unwavering. “Three weeks, Hugo. That’s how long you have to convince me this marriage is worth fighting for.”
I walk past him toward the stairs, my heart pounding but my spine straight.
“And throw those flowers in the trash,” I call over my shoulder. “They’re not welcome in my house.”
I climb the stairs without looking back, and I don’t let myself shake until I’m alone in my studio with the door closed behind me.
Then I sit on my couch and press my hands to my face and let the rage move through me like a wave.
Ginny Davies wants a fight.
She has no idea who she’s dealing with.