He Abandoned Our Wedding, I Destroyed His Life novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Junior's

Audrey moves out, leaves the cheesecake on his pillow and resigns in front of the whole floor, and Chris warns her not to embarrass him over Jade's case.

I stood in the kitchen with my bag on my shoulder and the phone against my ear.

"Dad, say that again."

"Jade Carlisle. Torn ligament in her right ankle, April second, on court three of their Manhattan club. Six million. Chris Abruzzo is counsel of record."

Across the counter, Chris was peeling the ring off the cheesecake box with two fingers.

He wasn't listening.

He never listened when it was my family on the phone.

"I'll call you in the morning," I told my father.

"Audrey, we can turn it down. There are other firms."

"Don't turn it down."

I hung up.

Chris set my ring on the windowsill, where we kept the spare keys and the takeout menus.

"Who was that?"

"My dad."

"Tell the Worcester crew I said sorry about the flowers." He yawned and loosened his tie. "I'm wiped. Jade's ankle is swollen like a grapefruit, Aud. You should've seen it."

"I did see it."

He didn't hear that either.

"Come to bed when you're done being dramatic."

He went into the bedroom and lay down on top of the covers in his suit.

He was snoring in four minutes.

I sat at the counter and listened to it.

Five years of that sound.

I used to think it was the safest sound in the world.

At one o'clock I got the suitcases down from the hall closet.

I packed slowly, because there was no reason to hurry.

The framed photo of us at Coney Island I left on the bookshelf, face up.

At four I carried the bags down to the lobby one at a time.

The night doorman watched me make three trips in a bathrobe over jeans.

On the fourth trip he took the big one out of my hands without a word.

I went back up for the last thing.

The Junior's box was still on the counter, sweating a little through the cardboard.

Strawberry.

I carried it into the bedroom.

Chris had rolled onto his side, one arm flung out across my half of the bed.

I set the box on my pillow, right beside his face, and tucked the lid shut.

Then I turned off the light.

My parents' hotel was in Midtown.

My mother opened the door at five in the morning in her reading glasses and didn't ask a single question.

She ordered eggs, toast and black coffee for three.

My father read the complaint in Jade's lawsuit on his tablet and kept making a small noise in his throat.

"What?" I said.

"Her right ankle. Grade three tear. 'Permanent loss of athletic function.'" He scrolled. "She claims she can't walk a city block without pain."

I took out my phone, opened the screen recording and slid it across the table.

My father watched Jade spin under Chris's arm in four-inch heels.

He watched it twice.

"Well," he said. "That's going to be a very short block."

On Monday morning I wore my best navy suit to the office.

The firm took up three floors in a glass tower on Lexington.

I had worked on the thirty-first floor for five years.

People went quiet when I came off the elevator.

Everybody had heard something, and nobody knew what.

A paralegal who'd been invited to wedding number two gave me a little wave.

I walked to the managing partner's glass corner office and knocked on the open door.

He looked up and took his glasses off.

"Audrey. I didn't expect you in. I'm sorry about Saturday."

"Thank you. I'm resigning."

I said it at a normal volume.

The open floor outside his door was full of associates, and every one of them stopped typing.

He sat back.

"You're upset. Take a week. Take two."

"I have two weeks of honeymoon leave booked. Please count it as my notice."

I set the letter on his desk.

He read it, and his eyebrows went up at the last line, where I'd written that I was joining a Boston firm.

"Which one?"

"I'll tell you once I've signed."

He shook my hand.

When I turned around, Chris was coming off the elevator with two coffees.

He looked at me, then at the managing partner, then at the boxes our assistant was already stacking by my old desk.

He put on his reasonable voice.

The one he used on juries.

"Hey, everybody. Audrey's going to take a little break. It's been a rough weekend."

He walked over and tried to kiss my temple.

I stepped back, and his lips caught air.

Somebody near the printer made a sound.

"It's not a break, Chris."

"Aud. Not here."

"I agree," I said. "Not here."

I picked up my box and walked to the elevator.

Nobody on the floor pretended to work while I waited for it.

On the train to Boston that afternoon I posted one photo.

My empty desk, a coffee ring on the wood, the Lexington windows behind it.

"Five good years. On to the next."

Then a comment popped up at the top.

Jade Carlisle, with a blue check.

"Healing looks so good on you, babe. Take all the time you need. Some of us are healing too."

She'd tagged it with a photo of her foot in a black medical boot, propped on a pillow beside a pink smoothie.

My mother, reading over my shoulder, said a word I'd never heard her say.

Somewhere around Providence my phone buzzed again.

It was Chris.

"Jade's ankle is a six-million-dollar case. Don't make me look bad in front of the partners."

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