Cooper, who was helping out inside, greeted me with a bright smile.
“Byron, you’re here! I found a box while cleaning up.”
“See if you still want it. If not, I’ll toss it out. That way, I’ll have room for the dough press.”
I wiped the dust off the box. Right away, my eyes landed on Hallie’s neat, flowing handwriting. [A gift from Byron.]
Curious, Cooper leaned closer.
He jokingly asked, “Oh, which woman gave you this present?”
“The wrapping looks so fancy, it’s clear she spent time on it.”
He eagerly checked the signature at the bottom.
As soon as he saw the graceful handwriting, he froze. His voice shook a little. “Hallie Walker?”
“You mean that famous genius beauty with a PhD?”
“That stunning astrophysicist PhD who got featured in an international journal for discovering an asteroid?!”
Cooper’s look toward me instantly turned full of surprise. “Byron, who are you really?”
Opening the box, I said quietly, “I was Hallie’s ex-husband.”
The unstable, unpredictable man. He had once stayed in a mental hospital because of his delusions.
The ex-husband she saw as a lasting shame.
Under Cooper’s constant questions, I sat down and told him my story with Hallie.