Chapter 2

I cried myself to sleep, and somewhere in that fog the air conditioner shut off.

It was the middle of summer, and the stale, heavy heat woke me.

With my congenital heart condition, a room like that could almost smother me.

Gasping for breath, I called out,

"Ervin, I'm so hot."

The words echoed back at me, and only then did I surface from the daze. He hadn't been mine for a long time now.

I let out a bitter laugh, and after checking around for a while I found it was the breaker.

The moment I flipped it back on, the security camera in the living room swiveled toward me, and that familiar voice came through it.

"The AC keeps tripping lately. I've already put in a repair request with the building. It's hot out, so take care of yourself."

I froze where I stood. Only a few seconds, then I cut off every last camera.

Real feeling or fake, it made no difference.

I was going to pull Ervin Dickerson out of my life, piece by piece.

One night was all it took. I had my emotions back under control.

When I walked into the office in a sharp business suit,

every employee turned toward Ervin's office like they were waiting for a show.

He was in there, walking Agnes through her work file by file, the pages plastered with bright tabs, guiding her hand.

His eyes were full of tenderness and love.

Maybe they sensed something was off, because the two of them looked up at me at the same moment.

Agnes's face flushed a deep, ugly red in an instant, and she couldn't meet my eyes.

Ervin, easy as anything, pushed the door open and came toward me.

"You're here. I'll hand everything at the firm over to you when the time comes."

I didn't so much as glance at him. I walked straight to HR, who were still enjoying the spectacle.

"Process my resignation. From today on, I have nothing more to do with Swanson & Dickerson."

Swanson & Dickerson was the law firm Ervin and I built with our own hands.

From complete unknowns to the most respected name in the field.

Over the years, on a record with not one lost case, I'd overtaken Ervin to become the firm's star name.

People used to tease him about it, said we were the strong wife and the weak husband.

But he never cared. He even changed the firm's name to Swanson & Dickerson.

The day of the renaming, he knelt in our new home with a ring he'd made himself and proposed to me.

"Kathy, I'm willing to stand behind you forever, to be your shield. You just charge ahead over me, do everything you've set your heart on."

And he did exactly that. He stepped back into the second line, managing the firm,

while all I had to do was focus on my cases.

My work was too specialized, and Agnes could only handle the basics.

So I had no choice but to send her to learn from the ground up under Ervin.

That was how, with my own hands, I pushed Agnes toward him.

When I'd finished the paperwork and turned to leave,

Agnes trailed after me without a word, and just like in our school days, she caught the hem of my clothes.

My body went stiff. I ignored her and kept walking.

She seemed to work up her courage, then pressed a yellowed card into my palm.

My mind was dragged back to those school years.

I'd lost my mother young, and in middle school my father was framed as a murderer.

After that I was pushed out, shut out, no one willing to be my friend.

Then one day, after some classmates tormented me again and doused me in water,

Agnes came to me like an angel and carried me through the hardest years of my student life.

And this scrap of paper was the make-up card I'd given her back then, when I hadn't had a cent to my name.

My eyes blurred with tears. Hands shaking, I tore the card to pieces and turned to go.

"I wish you a long and happy life together."