Most men are wearing tuxedos, their women hanging from their arm. When I walked in the room with Michael, I noticed a few heads turn our way. With Michael looking like he does, I assumed the women appreciated the sight of him. I kept my eyes low, hating to feel examined.
I’m pulled from my admiration of the room when I see a familiar-looking woman headed in Michael’s direction. Quickly, my eyes scan the area for Corbin, but he’s not at the bar.
The touch to my shoulder startles me. I recover when I see Jane.
“Lucy?” Her bright smile and shining eyes are exactly how I remembered them. “Do you remember me? I’m Jane Gilroy.”
I accept her hand, shake it carefully, then tell her, “Yes. Hello.”
Still smiling, but with added ease this time, she tells me, “After we met, Michael told me more about you. He seems quite…” She pauses, moving her eyes over my shoulder. “Happy, I should say. Michael’s always so serious, but you’re fitting in as far as I can tell.”
Fitting in. Funny.
“He still misses Lillie, but he’s working through it.”
“Oh yes.” She nods. “Unfortunately, he’ll always miss her.”
I hold back voicing how happy I am with the firm, and Michael, and start, “He said you offered to help with…”
Sensing my unease, Jane reads it for what it is. “We can talk when you’re ready, but please don’t wait. I want to help.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I admit for the first time. It wasn’t always avoidance in dealing with Margret, although most of the time it was, but I don’t know how to go about keeping her away.
“You’re proud,” she states, assuming wrong. I let her continue, though. “I get it. I was like you once. My husband died, leaving me his family to fight off. And they were nice people. I can’t imagine you’ve fared well in dealing with Margret Hollings, as I used to know the wretched woman to be.”
“She’s awful,” I reply, not needing clarification that Hollings is her maiden name. “She’s a mean and evil queen.”
Jane’s eyebrows rise at my colorful description. “She is,” she confirms, then uses her fingers to sort through a piece of her hair that’s fallen. “We’ll talk about all this later, okay? Then you can decide if you feel comfortable accepting my help.”
Feeling better, I relax for the first time since arriving, finally letting my guard down. We both turn to the crowd and watch as Corbin comes traipsing back with two glasses of wine in hand.
“So, this is good. You two are talking,” he says. “You’ve forgiven me, I hope?” Corbin aims his question in my direction.
I don’t answer. Over his shoulder, I see Michael conversing with the woman I still note looks familiar. I just can’t place where I’ve seen her.
Not minding Jane still standing next to me, I ask Corbin, “Who’s that woman talking to Michael?”
He turns around to find where I’ve focused. If it weren’t for his hand holding the glass so tightly in his grasp, I wouldn’t have any idea he’s grown tense. Jane clears her throat and sends a quick, knowing look to Corbin. He cowers in place, then hands the drinks to Jane.
“Let’s dance,” he strongly suggests, taking my hand and leading me to the dance floor. Jane says goodbye as we walk away.
Corbin pulls me in closer than we’ve ever been in the time I’ve known him.
“Did he date her?” I question, gazing over Corbin’s shoulder while resting my chin against it.
In my ear, I hear him clear his throat before he answers. “Yes.”
“For a long time?”
The woman has her hand on Michael’s chest. Finally, like a light beaming above, I realize where it is I’ve seen her. “She’s the woman who was sitting at the bar when we were at dinner with Lillie.” Corbin says nothing. “That’s her, isn’t it?”
“Lucy, I’m dancing. This is your apology. Why are you not enjoying it?”
Pushing away, I look up and give him a determined stare he can’t miss.
“Answer me,” I insist.
“Fuck,” he mutters, then stops dancing and takes my hand tightly in his.
As I follow Corbin through the crowd, I pull back to stop him when I see the woman place her hand on Michael’s jaw. His lips are tight and his eyes are closed. He doesn’t appear to be lost in a moment with this woman; instead, he looks furious.
Corbin makes a hard left, turning into a small dark and empty room.
Finally, out of patience, I prod further, using a sterner tone. “Well?”
“Lucy,” he hesitates. “I don’t think this is–”
“Don’t evade. Answer.”
Closing the door behind him, he shocks me with his admittance. “That woman Michael’s with is his ex-wife.”
Michael
AT THE SAME TIME I see Victoria headed in my direction, an abhorred sickness washes over me.
Before the night of Lucy’s celebratory dinner, marking her first month at the firm, it had been years since I last saw my ex-wife. That night, she happened to be sitting at the bar, looking as she always did - made-up and unapproachable. Corbin saw her, as well, thankfully not hesitating to act as though the woman didn’t exist.
After we buried our son, I said things to Victoria no woman should ever have to hear.
The accident that took Caleb wasn’t her fault, per se, yet the timing of it was. I still hold her partially responsible.
Once the pain of regret started to subside and the divorce was final, I swore I’d do everything in my power to never lay eyes on her again.
She’d taken my son to run off with Lucy’s husband. A terrible act of circumstance and cruelty took both her lover and our child away. The accident left her injured, but she recovered after months of rehabilitation. The scar she wears on the apple of her cheek matches the one on my hand.
Different scars of pain, but leading to the same result.
Unrecoverable loss.
The affair had been going on for over a year and, to this day, I still feel the weight of that responsibility on my shoulders. I neglected my marriage because I was driven to be something more than I already was. I should’ve been content and happy being a father and husband. Victoria had given me life’s most precious gift in Caleb, and I loved him dearly. I wanted to give them both everything I thought they deserved. He was the reason I took a determined breath each day…
Until he took his last.
When I hear Victoria’s voice call my name, I feel my blood turn to ice. The last words she spoke to me were in regards to how sorry she was in the choices she had made. She wasn’t mourning the loss of Gabe. She was mourning the loss of her decision to choose Gabe. To me, that was the evil in her I knew I could never escape.
While the bearers were laying Caleb into the cold earth, Victoria sobbed her grief into my unwelcome arms. She was barely able to stand at his side for the last time. The crash left her body broken, her own guilt breaking her spirit.
Exactly four days after he was laid to rest, I filed for divorce from the woman I deemed just as responsible for his death as I was. Ever since, I’ve considered her as good as dead. I found a way to live with that, and I held onto hope that, eventually, I’d learn to live without my son. It hadn’t happened until I met Lucy, the one other person left in the devastating wake of what Victoria and Gabe had done.
Now, looking down into my ex-wife’s saddened eyes and remorseful expression, I’m uneasy as I realize I feel absolutely nothing.
No sadness.
No hatred.
No regret.
Nothing.
“What are you doing here?” I question. All this time, we’ve managed to live in the same city and have managed to always miss each other.
So why tonight? Why, when I’ve finally found some kind of happiness, must I be reminded of the misery she once made me feel?
Because the fate of life really must be so cruel.
“Michael, please,” she begs. “I really didn’t know you’d be here. Greg didn’t think to check–”
“Shut up,” I snap. Her voice is already starting to grate on my nerves.
The woman I once knew has become what looks to be nothing more than a shell of her former self. Her eyes are sunken, her skin is pale, and the wrinkles around her mouth are prevalent. Like the person I recently was, I recognize Victoria is living a shade of hell within herself. The familiarity of what she’s feeling carries the power to send me back to the same.
I won’t let it.
Her hand moves up to touch my chest. It’s an intimate gesture I’d have given anything to feel the night she told me she was leaving. “I haven’t been able to remember his face for so long,” she brokenly admits.
“Stop,” I hiss. My hand moves to strike hers away, but I pause. Touching her is too much.
“He had your eyes,” she whispers, looking into mine as though trying to find him there. “And your strong jaw and mouth.”
Her hand touches my cheek and my skin burns at the contact. Sensing I’m nearing a loss of control, she removes her hand, but doesn’t make a move to give me any added space.
“I can’t forgive you,” I tell her coldly, watching any light she had in her eyes dim to nothing. Again, I recognize it because it’s the same I had in mine. “If forgiveness is what you’re after, I won’t do it.”