Chapter 10
I became a man obsessed with grand gestures.
The first bouquet arrived at her cottage the morning after I drove home from our disastrous face-to-face.
Three dozen red roses, long-stemmed and perfect, arranged in a crystal vase that cost more than most people's rent.
I'd called in the order from my car, barely able to see the road through the blur of unshed tears, and I'd paid extra for same-day delivery because I couldn't stand the thought of another night passing without her knowing I was sorry.
The florist called me back that afternoon.
"Mr. Cage? I'm sorry, but the recipient refused delivery. She asked us to return the arrangement to sender."
I stared at my phone, the words not quite computing. She'd refused them. She'd looked at three dozen roses and told the delivery driver to take them away.
My chest felt hollow, like someone had reached in and scooped out everything vital.
"Send them again," I said. "Tomorrow. Different flowers this time. Peonies. She loves peonies."
The peonies came back too.
So did the orchids. The tulips. The exotic arrangement of birds of paradise that I'd found at a specialty florist downtown. Every single delivery returned, rejected, sent back to the man who'd ordered them with increasing desperation.
I tried other things. A cashmere blanket in the soft gray color she'd always admired in store windows.
A first edition of her favorite novel, the one she'd mentioned wanting years ago and I'd never bothered to find.
A gift basket from the gourmet shop she loved, filled with fancy cheeses and artisanal crackers and that expensive olive oil she rationed like liquid gold.
All of it ended up on the curb outside her cottage.
I knew because I drove by. Not every day, not at first, but often enough that I started recognizing the recycling schedule of the small coastal town. I'd slow down as I passed her grandmother's place, my heart pounding with pathetic hope, searching for any sign of her.
And there my gifts would be. Sitting at the end of her gravel driveway like trash waiting for pickup. The cashmere blanket still in its tissue paper. The book in its protective sleeve. The gift basket with the ribbon still tied.
She wasn't even opening them. She was just putting them out like unwanted solicitations, like junk mail, like they meant nothing.
Because to her, they didn't.
I sat in my car across the street from her cottage one evening, watching the sun set over the ocean behind her house, and I finally understood what I should have known from the beginning.
You couldn't buy your way out of betrayal.
You couldn't apologize with expensive flowers and luxury goods for months of cruelty and neglect.
Every gift I sent was just another reminder of all the times I'd tried to paper over problems with presents instead of actually listening to her.
She didn't want my money. She'd never wanted my money.
She'd wanted me. The real me. The man who paid attention and set boundaries and chose her over his own pathetic ego.
And I'd given her Chloe Rudolph instead.
I drove home that night and didn't send anything else.
The separation papers arrived three days later.
I was sitting in my home office, staring at the computer screen without actually seeing it, when the courier knocked on the door. A thick manila envelope with my lawyer's return address, and I knew before I opened it exactly what was inside.
Julianne had signed the preliminary separation agreement.
Every page initialed, every signature precise and clear in that neat handwriting I'd seen on birthday cards and grocery lists and love notes when we were young.
She'd filled out the forms requesting a formal separation of assets, a division of property, the legal dissolution of twenty-two years of marriage.
And at the bottom of the stack, a letter from her attorney.
Mr. Cage,
My client has requested that all communication regarding this matter go through proper legal channels.
She has asked me to convey, in the strongest possible terms, that she does not wish to receive gifts, letters, or any other form of direct contact from you.
Any further attempts to reach her outside of this legal framework will be considered harassment and dealt with accordingly.
Additionally, my client has requested a strict "no contact" directive be added to the separation agreement. Please review the amended terms with your counsel.
No contact.
She didn't want to hear from me. Didn't want to see me. Didn't want my flowers or my presents or my pathetic attempts at reconciliation. She wanted me to disappear from her life as completely as if I'd never existed.
I read the letter three times, waiting for it to hurt less. It didn't.
I called my lawyer. He confirmed everything. The separation was proceeding. Julianne was serious. If I violated the no-contact order, she could pursue legal action.
"What do I do?" I asked him, and I hated how broken my voice sounded. "How do I fix this if she won't even talk to me?"
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. "Mr. Cage, as your attorney, I have to advise you to respect your wife's wishes. Give her space. Let the legal process proceed."
"And as a person? What would you tell me as a person?"
Another pause. Longer this time. "I'd tell you that some mistakes can't be fixed. Some damage is permanent. And sometimes the kindest thing you can do for someone you've hurt is leave them alone."
I hung up without saying goodbye.
The house felt enormous around me. Empty and echoing, every room a reminder of the woman who used to fill it with her presence.
I walked through the spaces she'd decorated, touched the things she'd chosen, sat in the chair where she used to read on Sunday mornings while I pretended to listen to her talk about whatever book she was into.
I hadn't listened. Not really. Not for years.
I'd nodded and said "uh-huh" and kept scrolling through my phone, waiting for the next dopamine hit from my email or my texts or whoever was stroking my ego that particular day. I'd been so hungry for validation from strangers that I'd starved the woman who'd given me everything.
And now she was gone. Legally separating from me. Requesting no contact.
I found myself in the kitchen, standing at the island where she'd left her ring. The surface was clean now, polished by the cleaning service that came twice a week, but I could still see it in my mind's eye. That small circle of platinum and diamond, sitting there like an accusation.
I pulled the ring from my pocket. I'd been carrying it everywhere since that first night, unable to let it go. The metal was warm from my body heat, the diamond catching the light from the pendant lamps overhead.
"I'm sorry," I said to the empty kitchen. "I'm so fucking sorry, Jules."
The words echoed off the marble countertops and died in the silence.
I signed the separation papers that night.
My lawyer had advised me to review them carefully, to negotiate, to protect my assets. But what was the point? I didn't care about the money. I didn't care about the house or the investments or any of the material things I'd spent my whole life accumulating.
I just wanted my wife back.
And she didn't want me.
I signed every page without reading the terms. Initialed where instructed. Agreed to whatever division of property her attorney had proposed. If she wanted half of everything, she could have it. If she wanted all of it, I'd give her that too.
None of it mattered without her.
I put the signed documents in the return envelope and left them on the counter for the courier to pick up in the morning.
Then I poured myself a whiskey and sat in the living room, staring at the Rothko print above the fireplace that Fletcher Booth had admired at the dinner party where everything started to fall apart.
The dinner party. The gala. All those moments where I could have chosen differently. Could have set boundaries with Chloe. Could have listened to my wife instead of dismissing her concerns. Could have been the man she needed instead of the vain, selfish fool I'd become.
I'd had so many chances. And I'd wasted every single one.
The whiskey burned going down, but it didn't fill the hole in my chest. Nothing did. Nothing would.
She wanted no contact.
So I would give her no contact.
But I wasn't giving up. Not yet. The Lewis Cage who signed those papers wasn't the same man who'd danced with Chloe Rudolph while his wife watched. That man was dying. Dissolving like salt in water, leaving behind something raw and new and unformed.
I didn't know who I was becoming. But I knew who I couldn't be anymore.
I finished my whiskey and went to bed alone, Julianne's ring still clutched in my fist.
Tomorrow, I would figure out what came next.