Chapter 2

By the time the banquet began, I had my face in order.

Eugene came back to my side and slid an arm around my waist, easy and natural, playing the devoted husband in front of everyone.

He took the toasts meant for me, adjusted my shawl, and when he leaned down to speak into my ear his breath was warm against my skin, warm the way it had been on every loving night we'd ever shared.

"Candice, why are you so pale?"

"It's nothing." I lowered my eyes and forced a smile. "Just a little tired."

He tensed at once and reached up to feel my forehead. "Is it the lights again? Are they hurting your eyes? I'll have them dim the overheads."

I have severe photosensitive epilepsy; strong flickering light can set it off. Eugene had replaced all the lighting in the entire museum with the softest warm glow for that reason.

I used to think that was love.

Only now do I understand it was taming. You keep the canary in a cage built to fit her exactly, so she can't leave, can't escape, so she has no one to depend on but him, no one to cling to but him.

Halfway through the banquet, Isabel came over with a glass of wine, all smiles. "Mrs. Farley, congratulations. The exhibition turned out beautifully today."

She was dressed all in white, and the pearl necklace at her throat made that scar look both pitiful and, somehow, deliberate.

I didn't answer.

But Isabel leaned in close, her voice pitched so only the two of us could hear. "Candice, do you know where Eugene was last night? He was in the greenhouse at his place, holding me, telling me my body runs warmer than yours, that I'm more comfortable to hold, that I can give him more pleasure than you ever could."

My fingers clenched hard, and I swallowed down the nausea and looked at her.

"You still don't know, do you?" Isabel's smile was sweet. "After your miscarriage two years ago, you hemorrhaged. They took your uterus out. You'll never be able to have a child, not for the rest of your life."

"Oh, and by the way, Eugene signed the consent. He said your uterus wasn't worth as much as your life to him, and that if he ever wanted a child, he'd rather it was mine."

My pupils shrank, and the tears welled up and spun in my eyes.

I remembered coming out from under the anesthesia two years ago, Eugene holding my cold hand, crying like a child. "Candice, I'm so sorry. We couldn't save the baby. But don't worry, we'll have plenty of children later."

So he had known all along, and he lied about the children we'd supposedly have.

He had stripped away even my right to be a mother, tossed it off like it was nothing, and then built lies to keep me from finding out.

I shot to my feet, and the crystal chandelier above me suddenly began to strobe. At some point Isabel had switched on a laser pointer in her hand, and the searing red dot jittered wildly across my field of vision.

"What are you doing!" Eugene's voice came from somewhere far off.

But it was already too late.

The seizure hit fast and hard.

I slid off the chair, limbs jerking, foam rising at the corner of my mouth, the world in front of me shattering into pale, ragged blots of light.

The last thing I saw was Eugene running toward me.

And Isabel, clutching her ankle, letting out a soft little cry. "Eugene, my foot hurts so much!"

His footsteps stopped.

He stood there, three meters away from me, looking at the redness rimming Isabel's eyes, then down at me convulsing on the floor.

He hesitated for only a second.

"Candice, hold on. Isabel's foot can't get hurt, she has a jewelry show next week."

He scooped Isabel up and strode away.

I lay on the cold marble floor, listening to my own teeth chattering together from the spasms, listening to the guests gasp around me, listening to Eugene's footsteps fade further and further.

So at the edge of life and death, I had been abandoned again.

Those three meters became a chasm I would never cross for the rest of my life.