As the Roses Bloomed Beneath His Feet, I Buried Our Seven-Year Marriage. novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Table Nine

Lena tells her aunt Maeve everything, then finds the gala seating chart in Alister's handwriting, which seats him with Carina and a guest, and puts Lena at Table Nine.

Alister made me breakfast the next morning, and it was perfect.

He made the eggs the way I like them.

He poured coffee into my blue mug.

A sticky note on the fridge said he'd be home at six.

He kissed my forehead on his way out. "Don't do anything we'll both regret."

I waited until his car left the driveway.

Then I drove to my aunt Maeve's flower shop.

Maeve was in the back, stripping thorns off a bucket of roses with kitchen shears.

She is sixty-three, with cropped gray hair and reading glasses on a cord.

She is also the first person I ever told that I can see the flowers.

She took one look at my face and put the shears down.

"Who died?"

"My marriage," I said. "Last night, in the car."

I told her all of it, and Maeve listened without interrupting, which is not her habit.

Then she asked the only question that mattered. "Did he say anything about the message?"

"He said it was work."

"At a restaurant. On your anniversary." She snorted. "Good."

"Aunt Maeve."

"I never said I liked him, Lena. I said he was polite. Those are different things."

She pulled off her apron and hung it on a nail.

"What did he say when you asked?"

"He said to wait until after the gala on the twenty-eighth."

"That's three weeks."

"I know."

"A man who's been caught doesn't ask for three weeks to think," Maeve said. "He asks for three weeks to arrange something."

She was right, and I hated that she was right.

"The flat upstairs has a bed and a kettle," she said. "Do you want it?"

"Not yet. I want to see what he's arranging."

"Then take your phone and your eyes, and photograph every page before you touch anything."

I drove home.

The house was quiet.

Alister's study is at the end of the hall, and in seven years I had never gone in without knocking.

He never told me not to. I just never did.

His desk was tidy, and the gala folder sat on top.

It was thick cream cardstock with the Maddox Rescue Foundation printed across the front in blue.

I opened it standing up.

The program was on top.

Page two had my name on it: Mrs. Lena Hatherton, donor of record, will present the Maddox Award.

The four million was mine, because everything he owned was mine.

I had signed every page he slid across the table, usually while he was on the phone.

Under the program was a seating chart, drawn by hand in Alister's slanting capitals.

Table One sat at the front, nearest the stage.

Beside it, in black ink, he had written: DR. CARINA MADDOX AND GUEST.

Next to that: ALISTER HATHERTON AND GUEST.

I read it twice.

Then I searched the rest of the room for my name, and it took a minute to find.

Table Nine, in the back corner by the kitchen doors, between a florist and a man from the caterer.

I was going to hand the woman her award on a stage, and then go and sit by the dishwashers.

I photographed the chart.

Then I photographed every other page in the folder, one at a time.

On the last page, at the bottom, was a line in Alister's pen.

Lena presents award, then steps off. Do not let her speak past the card.

The kitchen door clicked.

"Lena?" Alister called from the hall. "Why is your car in the driveway at eleven?"

I slid the folder back under the program and squared the edges.

His footsteps stopped outside the study.

"I'm in here," I said.

I turned around.

He stood in the doorway with roses around his shoes, thicker than they had been at dinner.

"What are you doing in my office?"

"Looking for a pen."

He looked at the desk, and then at the folder.

His eyes came back to my face and stayed there.

"Then take one," he said.

I took a pen from the cup and walked past him without touching him.

In the hall I looked back once.

Alister was already bent over the desk, turning the seating chart a little to the left.

"Guest" was not me.

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