Chapter 4

The next afternoon, I took an Uber to the mall.

The jeweler where I'd ordered the ring was in a corner on the second floor, and the clerk still recognized me when I walked in, coming over with a smile.

"Ma'am, you were happy with the ring last time?"

I took out the red velvet box and set it on the counter.

"I don't want it anymore."

"Custom pieces can't be returned or exchanged." The smile stalled on her face. "You signed an agreement at the time. We can't resell it."

"That's fine," I said. "Just melt it down for me."

She glanced at me, opened her mouth as if to say something, then thought better of it, nodded, and carried the box into the back room.

I sat on the high stool in front of the counter and waited, my face blank.

Six months of saved salary, from the design to placing the order to the wait, I remembered every step of it clearly.

Now all of it was about to become one small lump of gold for the furnace.

My phone lit up. A message from Burton.

"Working late tonight, get your own dinner. Shelagh's got a proposal due, I need to supervise it."

Then he added another line.

"Oh, and I made plans to take Shelagh to that new art exhibit. She's been saying she wants to go. You sort out your own time."

I stared at the message.

So it turned out plans with me came behind someone else.

Right after came a message from Shelagh, a link.

I opened it. A whole photo album. The pictures started years ago, her and Burton grinning and flashing peace signs in the break room.

The two of them dozing against each other on the high-speed train on a business trip.

Clinking glasses at the company gala, matching watch straps on their wrists.

A candid shot of him draping his coat over her shoulders in the office late at night.

Nearly a hundred photos, like another version of the daily married life of Burton Gilbert.

At the very end there was a block of text.

"Victoria, there are some things you probably don't know. I knew Burton before you did. He always looked out for me."

"I didn't want to get married back then, but he said he needed a marriage to steady things at home, so the two of you got together."

"You've seen for yourself how good he's been to me all these years. That business with the cat was just one thing among many."

There was a voice message too.

I tapped it and held it to my ear.

Shelagh, wheedling. "Burton, you promised you'd spend my birthday with me, and then you stood me up again..."

Burton's voice came back, low.

"That was my fault, I'll make it up to you next week. I'll take you to that private kitchen place you've been going on about, okay?"

"You said it. No forgetting this time."

"I won't, I promise. Whatever comes up, you come first."

The message finished.

The screen went dark on its own, reflecting my own face, drained white.

Three years.

All those late nights, the business trips, the tight deadlines, I'd thought he really was just busy with work. It turned out all of his time had gone to someone else.

The anniversaries he'd begged off, the dinners he'd canceled, the plans he'd forgotten had never just vanished into thin air.

They'd only flowed into someone else's calendar.

Shelagh sent another photo, one from a business trip they'd taken together.

Burton leaning against the floor-to-ceiling window of a hotel, Shelagh's arms wrapped around his waist from behind, smiling sweetly.

The timestamp in the bottom right corner was from three years ago.

Three years ago. Back then we hadn't even been married half a year.

Tears slid down before I noticed.

I put the phone back in my pocket.

The clerk came out from the back and handed me the melted gold.

I took it and weighed it in my hand. So light. As light as every promise from these three years.

I walked out of the jeweler's.

It had started raining outside the mall. I stood at the entrance waiting for a car, and my phone buzzed again.

Shelagh had sent a video, from the exhibit.

The lighting was dim, projections drifting across the walls. She smiled at the camera.

"Mr. Gilbert, look at this, it's gorgeous."

Off screen, Burton's voice, warm with a smile.

"If you like it, stay a while. We're not in a hurry."

Then the camera turned, catching the two of their shadows thrown against the wall, close, so close there was no gap between them.

Someone off screen said with a laugh,

"You two really suit each other."

Shelagh let out a little laugh.

"Of course we do."

The video ended.

The rain came down harder, the taxi still hadn't come, and I watched the streetlights blur in the downpour.

A car pulled up at the curb.

The door opened, and Burton got out under an umbrella, Shelagh behind him.

He looked up and saw me, and clearly froze for a second.

"What are you doing here?" His brow furrowed, and he glanced at the bag in my hand.

"What are you doing running off to the mall alone? Spending money recklessly again?"

Shelagh saw me and smiled a hello.

"Victoria, what a coincidence. Mr. Gilbert brought me to see the art exhibit, I didn't expect to run into you. It's really something, you should go take a look too."

Burton held the umbrella, its canopy tilted slightly toward Shelagh.

She was perfectly dry, while one side of his coat already had a patch soaked through by the rain.

I looked at the scene and smiled.

"That thing you said was useless yesterday..."

"I had it melted down."

"Burton, let's get a divorce."

I went around them and walked into the rain.