Arthur said nothing.
“And now?”
“The answer may cost you the marriage.”
I looked through the windshield.
“It already has.”
That afternoon I opened a small jewelry box in the Sterling office.
Inside was Eleanor’s diamond necklace.
Family piece.
Old.
Quiet.
The diamonds were smaller than the stories surrounding them.
I had never worn it.
I fastened it around my neck.
The clasp took four tries.
In the dark office window, I looked like exactly the woman Julian had never bothered to imagine.
Not the wife at the sink.
Not the quiet woman who “understood the home.”
Not the dependent spouse he assumed signed whatever appeared before her.