Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Warner
Establishment
“All of this because I want to sell some paintings?”
I blow out my cheeks, letting hot air slowly out through my nose. Tension ticks at my temple as I shift aside this morning’s newspaper on my desk, then meet Dr. Bellamy’s unmoved expression on my screen.
Can I get a blink?
No, you don’t want to write something in your notebook? Just going to sit there deadpan, shrouded in a forest of houseplants, huh?
A frustrated laugh claws out of me.
“Well, there’s not much I can do about it, is there?
” Who needs verbal feedback when my tele-therapist stares at me like a blinking chatbot cursor?
She’s just waiting for the right input to trigger a preloaded response.
And, apparently, I’m just managing a crisis because every move I make is now public record.
Dr. Bellamy blinks twice.
Well, at least I know the connection hasn’t glitched.
She won’t interrupt, though. Not when I’m “feeling” my emotions. Giving myself “permission to heal out loud.” Another one of her catchphrases she’s said a dozen times over the last eight months of tele-therapy.
I glance at the bold headline splashed across the front page of the Ellswood Times.
WHISPERS IN ELLSWOOD VALLEY: TECH MOGUL SET TO OFFLOAD LATE WIFE’S SECRET ART COLLECTION
My pulse slams in my neck.
I swallow hard, straightening.
“I guess headlines are just part of my new reality,” I say, still talking to the void. “Somehow, the world’s found a new passion for my wife’s paintings, when they didn’t even know she’d ever picked up a brush.”
“Does that bother you, that the public never knew this side of Sherry?”
“No,” I lie, choosing healing over hardening.
Like everyone else, she wants me to talk nonstop about my feelings to unburden my emotions. She wants me to be angry, and at the same time surround myself with a small, trusted circle of loved ones… who’ll inevitably just ask me how I’m doing a zillion times and look at me like I might break.
It’s a delicate balance.
On the screen, Dr. Bellamy nods, encouraging me like she can somehow hear my spiraling thoughts—including the silent annoyance with family and friends, this process, and her. But it’s my time, right? Patient-therapist confidentiality is what I’m paying a pretty penny for.
“Let’s dig a little deeper into how this all makes you feel,” Dr. Bellamy posits. “Losing your sense of privacy.”
Jesus, I hate this.
“Well, let’s see. Not great,” I say, chuckling.
“Would I love to take out my trash without worrying someone’s digging through my Q-tips and banana peels ten minutes later?
Sure. It’d be amazing to drop by my barber without paparazzi psychoanalyzing the taper of my fade.
Or just to get dressed for work without decision paralysis over whether to wear a tie.
Heaven forbid I maintain my hygiene and grooming without the world calling me cold for leaving the house without tear tracks running down my cheeks.
But again…” I drag in a long breath, willing it to cool my insides.
“I’m fine. It’s just taking some getting used to, is all. ”
“Mm-hmm,” Dr. Bellamy says, her tone soothing as she grabs a spray bottle and spritzes a huge, leafy green plant beside her on her desk. “First and foremost, you’re human. It’s okay to be hurt, frustrated, even angry.”
Exhaustion hijacks my laugh. You don’t say!
She purses her lips, refocusing on me. “Warner, this is a private space to say what you can’t publicly… Use it. It’s okay not to be okay.”
Under my desk, my knee bounces.
I lean forward, elbows gliding over my desk’s cool glass surface, fingertips tapping to the rhythm of my thinning patience.
“Look, I don’t know what you want me to say. Everything else is gone. Packed away or sold. All that’s left are Sherry’s paintings and the Clover Cay estate, which—as the headlines have dutifully noted—are set to be offloaded. Sooner rather than later, preferably.”
“Good.”
That’s it? Good?
Already anticipating her follow-up questions, I add, “Last week, I made a private appointment with a gallery, the Heartery, over in Harrington, which…” Seems was a mistake.
I ruffle the newspaper into the frame. “But it’s done.
And next month, my realtor and I are flying out to Clover Cay.
He’ll take some photos, get the listing up, and hopefully, by summer, no one will care about the paintings or the island and”—I flex my fingers, curling them into a fist—“I can just be normal, I guess.”
Just me.
Is that really so much to ask?
“And you’ll be fine?” Dr. Bellamy asks. Except it’s not you’ll be fine and live a life free of public speculation. No, it’s more a sarcastic you’ll be fine, fucked up, insecure, neurotic, and emotionally inept judgment.
My therapist is judging me.
“Yes,” I say, defiantly.
She nods, going mute again, and I don’t know why it burns me up, but it does.
“Right, I guess I’m the bad guy for not wanting to keep my wife’s paintings, for refusing to memorialize the faces of the same women who helped drive her to the edge long before she died.
” Fire blazes inside me. “What a terrible person I am, selling the island. The last place I remember her truly happy. The place where we agreed we’d go our separate ways. ”
I’m so tired of that Luxe Ladies franchise and its fanbase, these random people on social media slapping labels on me. Dictating how I’m perceived, thinking they get a say when I get to move on. If I’m grieving the “right way.”
Screw them.
“Suddenly, everyone’s an expert, replaying, dissecting reunions where I sat silently behind Sherry.
” I chuckle. “Do they think I wanted to be there? No, but I showed up for her. And now that somehow entitles them to comment on the Luxe Husband? They get to count my tears, track my whereabouts, and act like they know me? No, trust me.” A humorless laugh tumbles out of me. “I’m good.”
“It’s okay to move on at your own pace. There’s no timeline.” Dr. Bellamy nods, reassuringly, annoyingly.
Every muscle in my body tenses.
I know what she’ll say next. Grief is something I’m somehow supposed to not only live with, but manage. Be strong under a magnifying glass while losing my privacy and any sense of normalcy. Honor Sherry’s memory, and somehow still give myself grace.
It’s such bullshit.
There is a timeline. I am in a rush, a rush to change the narrative before it’s cemented in history.
And settling on a gallery home for Sherry’s paintings will help me do just that.
Let the world see that she was more than a Luxe Lady and a fighter—she was my goddamn wife.
An artist. A woman who was flawed and loved.
Whose legacy will live on through a charity in her name, funded from her art’s profits.
So, when her art sells, when the world sees her talent, the profit will fund a charity in her name.
Then we’ll see who gets the last word.
Maybe then they’ll get off my back. Maybe my family will see that I’m okay, that I’m moving on, my way.
“You want to know what really pisses me off?” I ask, nodding, fuming. “I moved to Ellswood for my wife. Relocated the hub of my business, brought jobs to this community, patronized this economy, so that she could fulfill some pseudo-celebrity dream of being a Luxe Lady.”
“Yes.” Dr. Bellamy nods, encouraging me to not be good. She knows where I’m going with this because we end up here every time.
“Then they make her the villain,” I say, still telling myself the story because I can’t believe how it ended.
“Bait her until she’s at her wits’ end, women all in her face, and she snaps.
Of all things, throws a goddamn blow dryer.
” A sinister laugh claws its way out of me, loud and as angry as I still am just thinking about how that single choice changed the trajectory of her life.
Our life. “So, they dox her. Share all her business—address, phone number, email, everything. Attack her online.”
Dr. Bellamy’s gaze lowers as she jots something down. “I’m listening.”
“And her fandom? That she loved, more than me, I think? Would’ve done anything for them? Bam! Gone. Turned on her. Just like that, you know?”
It’s rhetorical. My regurgitated rant, the stale anger, all of it.
I never expect Dr. Bellamy to say yes or no, or that she’s got any opinion on my brand of grief, one way or the other.
She’s getting paid to sit in her ficus-infested office, surrounded by bookshelves heaped with self-help manuals and tiny dachshund figurines.
To be my virtual sounding board while I feel…
everything. To repeatedly advise me to build my circle and create “rituals of remembrance.”
Laughter lodges in my throat.
Rituals like venturing—unarmed—into the country club to celebrate a would-be anniversary.
Or lighting that stupid Peach Paradise candle every damn day to “celebrate Sherry’s life in a small, meaningful way.
” Which is hilarious, because Sherry hated that fucking candle.
She only ever burned it when we had guests she wanted to fool into thinking we were some passionate couple who had sex more than twice a fiscal quarter.
Yeah, okay.
So, when Dr. Bellamy tips up her red-rimmed glasses, holds up a single finger, and smiles at my rant, I’m thrown completely.
She’s amused?
“What?” I ask, caught off guard. Genuine curiosity whirs around me, and I scratch my temple. For something to knock this paradoxically stoic plant lady out of character, it’s got to be good.
“Well, it’s just that”—she sits back and presses two fingers to her lips—“something feels different.”
Okay, vague. “Which part?” I ask, mentally replaying the speech in my head.