Chapter 19: You Don't Get to Rewind

The room waited for me to fall apart.

I turned and looked down at Valeria.

"Divorced," I said.

"Done," she said. "He has nothing to hold you, Betsy. No name, no house, no right to your child."

Her voice rang through the microphone I was still holding.

Don's hand closed around my wrist.

"Betsy, I'll have the court reverse it tonight. Fraud. It was filed on a lie."

"Let it stand."

"What?"

I looked at the silent crowd, at the white roses, at Bea leaning on her cane with her mouth in a hard little line.

"I signed first," I said into the microphone. "I meant it. I'm not Mrs. Russo tonight, and I'm not afraid of that."

The first thing Valeria lost was her smile.

The second thing was her audience.

Two guards took her by the elbows, and she kicked off her shoes and screamed that she was Don's real wife in every way that counted.

The doors closed on her.

The band, at some silent signal from Carmela, played a waltz.

Don stood on the stage beside me with the microphone gone from his hand.

"Marry me again," he said. "Tomorrow. At the courthouse. Same ring."

"No."

I said it softly.

I felt the word go through him.

"You don't get to rewind," I said. "You don't get to cut the last three years out of the tape and start over from the part where you're sorry."

"I didn't mean it that way."

"I know how you meant it. You decided, Don. You went straight to the fix."

He shut his mouth.

He nodded, slowly.

"You're right."

"I know."

"Tell me what you do want."

"I want to go home," I said. "To your house, tonight. Not for a ring."

His eyes went black.

He didn't ask what I meant.

We left the gala before the cake.

In the car, in the back seat, he kept his hands on his knees the whole way to Greenwich.

I put my palm on his thigh.

He made a noise in his throat.

"Betsy."

"You told me what you'd do when we got home."

Keep reading free with an account. Start Too Late, Don Russo: His Pregnant Wife Signed First from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.