6. Elena
— ? —
Elena
The apartment above the laundromat costs eleven hundred dollars a month.
It’s perfect.
It’s mine.
I signed the lease three days after I left the motel, using money I’d saved from furniture commissions over the past year.
Not much, eight thousand dollars, enough for first and last month plus a security deposit and approximately seven more months of survival if I don’t eat anything more expensive than ramen.
Which is what I’m eating tonight. Ramen with an egg cracked into it, because I read somewhere that protein helps with despair.
My phone buzzes. I glance at the screen, expecting spam.
Wire transfer received: $50,000. Sender: Vale Industries LLC.
I put down my chopsticks.
It takes twenty minutes to figure out how to reverse a wire transfer. The bank representative sounds confused…“Ma’am, you want to send the money back?” but eventually she processes the return and I hang up feeling like I’ve won something.
My phone buzzes again.
Wire transfer received: $100,000. Sender: Adrian Vale Personal Account.
I reverse that one too.
The next day, it’s $250,000. I reverse it. The day after that, a certified check arrives in the mail, made out to me, for half a million dollars. I tear it into pieces and drop them in the trash.
I don’t want your money. I want you to sign the divorce papers.
But I don’t send that text, because my number is blocked and I’m not ready to unblock it. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
***
The phone call with my mother happens on a Tuesday.
I’m sitting in my workshop space, a corner of the laundromat basement that the owner lets me use for an extra hundred a month, sanding the edge of a cutting board I’m making for… someone. Anyone. Any commission at all would be nice.
“How are you holding up?” Mom’s voice is thin and faraway, the connection crackling.
“Fine. Busy with work.”
“What about the Miller commission? The dining set?”
I stop sanding. “How do you know about that?”
“You mentioned it last month. Eight chairs and a table, you said. That must be keeping you occupied.”
“It fell through.”
“What? Why?”
I don’t want to tell her. I really don’t want to tell her. But she’s going to find out eventually, and I’d rather she hear it from me than from the society pages.
“The divorce is public. Sarah Miller’s husband is some kind of business associate of Adrian’s, and she decided the optics were too complicated.” I start sanding again, harder than necessary. “Her exact words were ‘too much drama attached.’”
“Oh, sweetheart.”
“It’s fine. I’ll find other clients.”
“Elena.” Mom’s voice shifts, softens. “Are you eating?”
“Yes.”
“Real food?”
I look at the ramen cup on my workbench. “Define real.”
She sighs. The crackle of the connection sounds like static, or like disappointment.
“Can I ask you something?” I set down the sandpaper. “About Dad.”
“What about him?”
“When you watched the videos, all those times he showed you proof of where he was and who he was with, were you angry about the cheating, or were you angry about something else?”
The silence on the other end lasts so long I check to make sure the call hasn’t dropped.
“Both,” she finally says. “I was angry about the cheating. But I think… I think I was angrier that he was never really there. Even when he wasn’t with other women, he wasn’t with me. Not really. Not in any way that mattered.”
“Yeah.” My throat feels tight. “I know what you mean.”
“Adrian wasn’t there?”
“Adrian was never there. He was physically present, but he was always somewhere else, on his phone, in his head, thinking about the next deal. I could have been anyone. I could have been a lamp. The only time he looked at me was when his mother said something cruel and he wanted me to just take it.”
“And the sister? Camille?”
“I don’t know.” I pick up the sandpaper again, run my thumb across the grit. “I don’t know what’s true anymore. Adrian says she kissed him and he pushed her away. He has security footage. But I can’t…”
“You can’t watch another man’s proof.”
“No.” My voice breaks on the word. “I can’t be you, Mom. I’m sorry. I know that sounds harsh, but I can’t spend the next four years analyzing timestamps and angles and trying to convince myself that what I saw wasn’t what I saw.”
“Good,” she says quietly. “Don’t be me. Trust yourself.”
I think about the USB drive in my nightstand drawer, untouched since the day it arrived.
“I’m trying.”
***
The letter from Adrian’s lawyer arrives two weeks later.
Dear Ms. Vasquez,
On behalf of our client, Adrian Vale, we are writing to inform you that Mr. Vale declines to sign the enclosed dissolution petition. He requests mediation and couples counseling before proceeding with any divorce proceedings…
I stop reading. Crumple the letter. Throw it across the room.
Then I pick it up, smooth it out, and read the rest.
…Mr. Vale wishes to convey that he remains committed to the marriage and is willing to wait indefinitely for the opportunity to demonstrate this commitment through actions rather than legal arguments.
He proposes no timeline, no conditions, and no ultimatums. He simply asks for the chance to prove himself worthy of reconciliation.
Should you wish to discuss this matter further, please contact our offices at your earliest convenience.
I don’t contact their offices.
Instead, I go back to sanding the cutting board, and I try not to think about the word indefinitely.
***
The knock comes at 2:17 a.m.
I’m awake, I’m always awake now; sleep feels like a luxury I can’t afford, but I’m not expecting visitors. The laundromat downstairs closes at midnight, and my building doesn’t exactly attract late-night social calls.
I grab the hammer from my workbench. Better than nothing.
“Who is it?”
“It’s me.” His voice, muffled through the door. “I bribed your super.”
I open the door.
Adrian is standing in the hallway, soaking wet. It must be raining again. His hair is plastered to his forehead and his coat is dripping onto the linoleum and he’s holding a toolbox.
“Your ceiling is leaking.” He says it like this explains everything. “I saw water damage when I looked up the building inspection reports.”
“You looked up my building inspection reports?”
“I looked up everything. I know the radiator doesn’t work properly, I know the windows need caulking, and I know your landlord hasn’t fixed that leak since 2019.” He holds up the toolbox. “I brought supplies.”
“Adrian…”
“I’m not staying. I’m not trying to pressure you. I just…” He takes a breath. “I can’t sleep knowing your ceiling is dripping. Let me fix it. Please.”
I should say no. I should close the door and go back to my sleepless vigil and my ramen and my cutting board that nobody commissioned.
Instead, I step aside.
“The leak is over the bed.”
***
He works for two hours.
I sit in the corner and watch him climb onto my wobbly desk chair, the only thing tall enough to reach the ceiling, and patch the water damage with materials he brought in that ridiculous toolbox.
His shirt is a pale blue button-down that probably cost four hundred dollars, and now it’s streaked with plaster dust and ceiling stain.
“You’re going to fall,” I say.
“Probably.” He doesn’t look down. “This chair is terrible.”
“It was eight dollars at a thrift store.”
“It should have been free. I think one of the legs is held together with tape.”
“Duct tape. Very sturdy.”
He laughs, a real laugh, surprised and a little broken, and for a moment he sounds like the man I married. The one who made me laugh at a rooftop bar until 3 a.m., the one who looked at me like I was the most interesting person in any room.
Then his phone buzzes in his pocket, and I remember why I’m sitting in a basement apartment with a leaking ceiling instead of Vale Manor with functioning appliances.
“Don’t answer it.”
“I wasn’t going to.” He pulls the phone out and turns it off completely. Sets it on my desk. “See? Off.”
“That’s new.”
“I’m trying new things.” He climbs down from the chair and surveys his work. The patch is neat, professional-looking. “That should hold for a while, but you really need to get the landlord to fix it properly.”
“I’ll add it to my list.”
“I could…”
“No.”
“I was going to say I could recommend a contractor.”
“I said no.”
He nods. Doesn’t argue. Just picks up his toolbox and walks toward the door.
“Adrian.” He stops. “Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“The ceiling. The money. The letters. All of it.”
He turns to face me. In the dim light of my terrible apartment, he looks exhausted, dark circles under his eyes, lines around his mouth that I don’t remember seeing before.
“Because you said you didn’t need my proof. You needed me present.” He sets down the toolbox. “So I’m being present. Whatever that looks like. However long it takes.”
“I’m not going to forgive you just because you patched my ceiling.”
“I know.”
“I’m not going to watch the footage.”
“I know that too.”
“Then what are you hoping for?”
He’s quiet for a long moment. Then he picks up the toolbox again, opens the door, and looks back at me.
“A chance,” he says. “That’s all. Just a chance to prove I can be different.”
He leaves before I can respond.
***
At 4 a.m., I’m still awake.
The ceiling isn’t dripping anymore. The apartment is quiet except for the radiator’s mechanical heartbeat. And in my nightstand drawer, underneath a paperback I’ll never finish and a phone charger I keep forgetting to use, there’s a USB drive that I haven’t touched since the day it arrived.
I get out of bed.
Open the drawer.
Hold the drive in my palm.
It’s lighter than I expected. Such a small thing to contain so much potential destruction, or redemption, or maybe both.
Trust yourself, my mother said.
But what does it mean to trust yourself when you don’t know what you believe?
I close the drawer.
Go back to bed.
Don’t sleep.