Phoenix Rising(3)

The fleur-de-lis pattern in the glass scattered rainbow colors across the muted black of Will’s Gucci suitcases when he swung the door open. Jessa crossed her arms and swallowed a lump that had somehow become lodged in her throat.

It struck her then that there were no good words in the English language for this kind of goodbye. She couldn’t even be certain what kind of goodbye it was. After nineteen years, it was more a dissolution of a partnership than the ending of a marriage. They’d never been an affectionate couple to begin with.

“Take care of yourself, Jessa,” Will said quietly.

“I’ll be fine.”

“Don’t worry about money. I’ll handle the bills, at least for the summer. You need to get a lawyer. Have him contact Chase. They should have the papers worked out in no time.”

“What about Marissa?” Jessa wondered idly how she was going to pay her housekeeper.

Will slanted Jessa a look that made her feel equal parts embarrassed and pitied. “I already let Marissa go. I think you can probably manage to cook and clean up after yourself. If you’re careful, you might not even have to get a job.”

Wow. Jessa couldn’t imagine how Will’s opinion of her had slid so low over the years.

Funny, but she’d not once thought of employment before that moment. She’d been an entitled homemaker for so many years that Jessa had no idea what she was still capable of doing to earn her own funds. A career in charity events planning seemed unlikely, though that was what she’d spent the last sixteen years doing. She’d never finished her fine arts degree. After marrying Will, it had seemed pointless.

Will shifted back and forth on his feet. A short man dressed in the impeccable black uniform of Will’s favorite car service loaded the suitcases into the trunk of the Lincoln. A strange sort of half smile crept onto his face before Will climbed into the backseat and nodded to the driver. The sleek black car exited the driveway and it was over.

Jessa watched until they were out of sight, her body numb with shock. After all that had just happened, it had been obvious what Will was thinking. He’d wanted to kiss her. Despite the fact that he was leaving her for another woman who was supposedly his heart’s desire, he wanted to plant one last kiss on Jessa’s lips to say some kind of sick goodbye. The bastard.

But she’d have been lying if she’d claimed she didn’t want him to. Jessa had her own reasons for wishing they’d had that last kiss. Will had wanted closure. Jessa just wanted to prove one last time that she didn’t give a rat’s ass who he fucked or whether or not he stayed with her.





Chapter Two



She couldn’t stay at the house after he left. Just being inside was stifling. The memories were suffocating. And she was nowhere near ready to sort through them yet. Jessa wanted to get away. The whole world was moving on without her. She was being left behind. Will had his new piece of ass and Ginny’s kids had their new dad. Everybody but Jessa had a new life.

She climbed into the car she rarely drove and headed downtown. Jessa wanted to go somewhere different, far away from the Club or the trendy Galleria. Somewhere normal that didn’t have valet parking or personal shoppers. She needed to walk, to move. It was a desperate effort to stay ahead of the weighty thoughts that were threatening to take her down.

The late spring afternoon was chilly. It had stopped raining but the sunlight was too pale to offer much heat and the wind was biting. Walking past a wide, plate glass window, Jessa caught sight of her reflection.

Her feet stopped, eyes riveted to the glass. She didn’t know the person in the glass, hadn’t known her for years. She certainly wasn’t who she’d set out to become. But does anyone become that person?

She’d married young, too young. Jessa had been nineteen and pregnant. Looking back, she couldn’t be sure they had wanted to get married. But there hadn’t seemed to be any other options worth considering at the time. She hadn’t realized that being a single parent was possible, if not easy.

Then fate had played the final joke on the both of them when Jessa miscarried in her second trimester.

They had struggled for five or six years to get Will through school, trying to start a family, but suffering through two more miscarriages instead. She’d be hard pressed to pinpoint the exact moment in the following hard-as-hell years when she’d realized she didn’t love Will. It wasn’t as if there’d been a particular fight or upheaval that had severed their feelings toward one another. At least not for her, though Jessa suspected his reasoning was much easier to nail down. Will wanted a family. Ginny had one. And that was something Jessa’s body seemed incapable of providing for him.