“That’s what makes you unforgivable.”
He stared at me as if I’d slapped him.
Good. Let the sentence land where pity used to.
I turned and walked away with Blackwood and Helen beside me, my heels clicking across the polished floor in a rhythm that felt almost ceremonial. Outside, the afternoon sun hit the courthouse steps hard and hot. Reporters waited near the curb, though fewer than at the funeral. Scandal gets less glamorous once it becomes paperwork.
One of them called my name. I didn’t stop.
At the house that evening, I began sorting what was left of my old life.
Grant had moved most of his personal things out by then. The closet was cleaner. The bathroom emptier. The silence less crowded. I opened drawers, filled boxes, made piles: keep, donate, shred, never look at again. In the back of the hall closet, behind old picnic blankets and a broken lamp, I found a narrow storage box I didn’t recognize.
Inside were mementos from my marriage.