9. Hugo #2
“Hugo.” Her voice is warm, pleased. “I thought you’d never call. Did you see the ratings from the interview? Through the roof. The label is talking about a follow-up, maybe a whole…”
“This partnership is done.”
Silence on the other end.
“Excuse me?”
“No more interviews. No more videos. No more anything.” I keep my voice flat, controlled. “Whatever you or the label has already planned, I’m not participating. You can tell Derek, you can tell the executives, you can tell whoever you want. I’m finished.”
A pause. When Ginny speaks again, the warmth has curdled into a blade.
“You don’t get to walk away, Hugo. We have contracts. Obligations. The reunion narrative is just getting started…”
“I don’t care about the narrative. I don’t care about the contracts. I’ll pay whatever penalties I have to pay, but I’m not spending another minute pretending that you and I have anything worth celebrating.”
“This is about her, isn’t it?” Ginny’s laugh is incredulous. “Your little wife already left. I saw the filing, it’s all over the industry. What exactly are you fighting for?”
“Everything I should have fought for from the beginning.”
“She’s gone, Hugo. She’s not coming back. And even if she wanted to, do you really think she’d take you back after everything that’s happened?” Another laugh, crueler this time. “Face it. You lost her the moment you agreed to work with me. The rest was just… details.”
I grip the phone tighter.
“You’re probably right,” I say. “I probably have lost her. But I’d rather spend the rest of my life trying to earn her back than spend another second with you.”
“You’re making a mistake.”
“No. I made the mistake months ago when I let the label convince me this reunion was a good idea. When I let Derek push me into a situation that I knew would hurt her. When I chose my career over my marriage because I was too much of a coward to fight for what actually mattered.” I take a breath.
“But I’m done making mistakes. So here’s what’s going to happen: you’re going to lose my number.
You’re going to stop talking about me in interviews.
And you’re going to find someone else’s career to climb on, because I’m not your ladder anymore. ”
“You’ll regret this.”
“I already regret more than you can imagine. This won’t even make the list.”
I hang up before she can even reply.
The phone sits silent in my hand, and I wait for the satisfaction of having finally cut her off.
It doesn’t come. There’s just the hollow awareness that I should have done this months ago, before any of this started, before I let Lucille slip through my fingers while I was too busy performing for cameras to notice she was drowning.
I look down at the divorce papers on my desk.
She wants nothing from me. Not money, not assets, not even an explanation.
But I have to try anyway. I have to find some way to show her that I finally understand what I destroyed. What she gave me. What I threw away.
I just don’t know how.
Florence is in the kitchen when I find her, making tea she doesn’t need in a house that isn’t hers.
“I cut off Ginny,” I say from the doorway. “Told her the partnership is done. Whatever the label has planned, I’m not participating.”
My mother looks up, her expression unreadable.
“That’s a start.”
“It’s not enough.”
“No. It isn’t.” She pours hot water over the tea bag, steam rising between us. “What else are you going to do?”
I cross to the counter and sit on one of the stools, the same place Lucille used to perch while she ate her breakfast standing up because she was always running late.
“I need to know how the song leaked,” I say. “The original demo. The one that started all of this.”
Florence’s eyebrows rise. “You think it wasn’t an accident?”
“I think Ginny is the only person who benefits from it going viral. I think the timing was too perfect, right when my album was about to drop, right when maximum chaos would help her career. I think someone engineered this whole thing, and I need to know who.”
“You suspect Ginny.”
“I suspected Ginny from the beginning. But she denied it, and I had no proof, and I was too busy trying to manage the fallout to dig deeper.” I meet my mother’s eyes.
“I can’t dig now without tipping off the label.
If Derek finds out I’m investigating, he’ll circle the wagons.
But you know people. People who aren’t connected to my career.
People who could ask questions without raising flags. ”
Florence studies me for a long moment.
“What would you do with the information? If you found out who leaked it?”
“I don’t know yet. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.
” I run a hand through my still-damp hair.
“But Lucille has spent months being painted as the jealous, unstable wife while Ginny played the innocent party. If someone manufactured this situation, if someone deliberately destroyed my marriage for their own gain, she deserves to know the truth.”
“Even if it doesn’t bring her back?”
“Especially if it doesn’t bring her back.” My voice catches. “I owe her that much. I owe her more than I can ever repay. But I can at least give her the truth about what happened to us.”
Florence sets down her teacup with a soft clink.
“I know a private investigator,” she says slowly. “Retired, very discreet. He’s helped some of my friends with sensitive matters over the years. I could ask him to look into it.”
“Would you?”
“I would.” She reaches across the counter and takes my hand. “Not for you. For Lucille. That girl deserved better than what my son gave her, and if there’s even a chance that someone orchestrated her suffering, I want to know who.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. These things take time, and there’s no guarantee he’ll find anything.
” She squeezes my hand. “In the meantime, you need to start showing up. Not for the label. Not for your career. For her. Even if she won’t see you.
Even if she never takes you back. You need to become the man who deserves her, whether you ever get the chance to prove it or not. ”
I nod slowly, her words settling into my chest like a seed taking root.
“I don’t know how,” I admit. “I’ve spent my whole life keeping people at arm’s length. It was always easier that way, long before Ginny ever came along. I don’t know how to be vulnerable. I don’t know how to show up.”
“Then learn.” Florence’s voice is firm. “You learned piano. You learned songwriting. You learned how to perform for thousands of people without breaking a sweat. You can learn this too, if you want it badly enough.”
“I want her.”
“Then fight for her. But fight properly this time. Fight with honesty and consistency and the kind of showing up that doesn’t disappear when it gets hard.” She releases my hand. “I’ll call my investigator tonight. We’ll see what he can find.”
I stand, feeling the first stir of what might be purpose moving in my chest.
It’s not hope. I don’t deserve hope yet.
But it’s movement. It’s direction. It’s a way forward instead of the paralysis that’s gripped me since Lucille drove away.
“Mom,” I say at the doorway. “The stitches in my clothes. How long do you think she’s been doing that?”
Florence is quiet for a moment.
“Knowing Lucille? Probably since the beginning. Probably since the first time she noticed a seam that needed fixing and decided to fix it without being asked.” She smiles sadly.
“That’s who she is, Hugo. Someone who takes care of people in secret, without expecting anything in return.
Someone who loves in ways that don’t demand recognition. ”
“I never saw it.”
“You weren’t looking.” She turns back to her tea. “Start looking now. Even if she’s not there to see you do it.”
I leave the kitchen and walk through the too-quiet house, past the dining room where cold food still sits on the table because I couldn’t bear to throw it away, past the living room where we used to sit on opposite ends of the couch pretending that distance was comfortable.
In my study, the divorce papers wait on my desk. I don’t sign them.
Not yet. Not until I’ve done everything in my power to show her that I can change.
But somewhere out there, someone is responsible for the bomb that exploded my marriage. Someone leaked that song and set this whole nightmare in motion. And when I find out who, they’re going to answer for it.
The thread has been pulled.
I have no idea where it leads.
But I’m going to follow it anyway, because it’s the only thing I can do for the woman who spent two years loving me in silence while I was too blind to see.
I’m going to find the truth.
And then I’m going to fight.