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“Do you think he’d ever tell me whose birthday it was?” She crouched down, fingering the lettuce heads.
No, he won’t.
“Yeah, I don’t think so, either.” She sighed. “But, anyway, you drink some water. I’ll come check on you tomorrow morning. For lack of anything better to do.”
She chuckled, rising up and putting her cigarette out against a wooden passageway.
Nem had been sending Smithy to buy her a pack a day. I made a mental note to tell her the wife of a senator was not allowed to puff like a chimney in public.
I waited a few moments, then made my way to the corridor, expecting the balcony doors to slide open and to catch her going up the stairs.
After waiting for long minutes—something I despised doing with every bone in my body—I descended the stairs, making my way to the terrace.
Her disappearing act was grating on my nerves. First, she broke Romeo’s picture, and now, she snooped around and talked to her future salad.
I pushed the balcony doors open, ready to roar at her to go to bed, when I found her at the far end of the garden.
She was in the open, second shed where we kept our trash cans.
Great.
She was talking to garbage, now, too.
I made my way to her, noticing that leaves were no longer crunching under my loafers. The garden was in much better shape.
She had her back to me, bending into one of the green recycling cans, surrounded by garbage. There was no way to sugarcoat what I was seeing here.
She was going through the trash.
I walked in the open door, leaning against it with my hands stuffed inside my front pockets. I watched as she sorted through bags of trash, then cleared my throat, making myself known.
She jumped, gasping.
“Looking for a snack?”
She placed a palm on her chest over her heart and shook her head.
“I just…Ms. Sterling said that the clothes that I…uh…”
“Ruined?” I offered.
“Yeah, they’re still here. Some of them, anyway.” She gestured to the heaps of clothes at her feet. “They’re going to send them to charity tomorrow. Most of the items are salvageable. So, I figured, if the clothes are still here, then maybe…”
The picture was still here.
She was trying to save Romeo’s picture without knowing who he was, after seeing Sterling and me celebrating his birthday.
She didn’t know that she wouldn’t find it—I asked Sterling, who confirmed that the batch with the picture had been already taken away.
I raked a hand over my face. I wanted to kick something. Surprisingly—she wasn’t that something.
Heartache and regret etched her face as she turned around and looked at me with eyes raw with emotion. She understood she not only ripped fabric—fuck the fabric—but also something deep inside me.
Tears hung on her eyelashes. It struck me as ironic that I’d spent my entire adult life choosing cold-blooded, unsentimental women for my flings, only to get married to a complete wuss.
“Leave it alone.” I waved her off. “I don’t need your pity, Nemesis.”
“I’m not trying to give you pity, Villain. I’m trying to give you comfort.”
