Shadow of Her: When He Realized Too Late novel · Chapter 2 of 16

Chapter 2: The Last Page

Langston signs the divorce agreement without reading it while Jillian reads the heading and hands him the pen, then tells Annabel she won't tell him.

I stood at the bottom of the stairs until the master bedroom door clicked shut.

Then I picked up the envelope and took it to bed with me.

I didn't sleep much.

At three, I heard the dog's claws on the hallway floor.

At four, I heard Langston's voice through the wall, low and patient.

I had never heard him use that voice with me.

At six I got up and went down to make coffee.

Someone was already at my stove.

Jillian stood barefoot on the tile in my blue cashmere robe.

My grandmother's cast iron pan was on the burner, full of bacon.

She picked a strip out with her fingers and dropped it to Biscuit.

The dog caught it in the air.

"Good boy," she said.

Then she saw me.

"Morning, Annie. I hope you don't mind. Langston said everything in the house was fair game."

"That's my robe."

She looked down at it.

"Is it? It was hanging on the door of the laundry room."

"It was hanging there because I washed it yesterday."

She shrugged.

The robe slipped a little off one shoulder, and she didn't fix it.

"I'll have it cleaned for you," she said. "Or I'll buy you a new one. You'd look good in gray."

Langston came down the stairs fast, buttoning his cuffs.

His hair was wet.

He had a board call at seven and he was late for it.

He was always late for things that weren't her.

"Coffee," he said to nobody in particular.

Jillian poured him a mug from my pot and put it in his hand.

He drank it standing up.

I took the envelope out from under my arm.

I'd already pulled the agreement out and folded it back to the last page.

"I need a signature before you go," I said.

He glanced at the paper, then at his watch.

"What is it?"

"The thing I wanted to talk about last night."

"I don't have time for this now."

"It won't take long."

He set the mug down with a hard little clack on the marble.

Jillian leaned over his arm to see.

I watched her eyes move across the top of the page.

The heading was right there in bold.

Marital Settlement Agreement.

I saw her read it.

I saw her lips close over whatever she'd been about to say.

Then she smiled at me.

She took a pen from the cup by the phone and pressed it into his hand.

"Sign it, babe. You're going to miss your call."

"What is it, Annabel?" he said again.

"Something that needed settling."

"Is this about the gala donations again? I told you, my mother handles that."

"Just sign it."

He signed.

Langston Aldridge, in the big slanted letters I'd seen on our marriage license.

He didn't turn a single page back.

He dropped the pen on the counter and grabbed his keys.

"The gala's Saturday," he said. "Fifty years. My mother wants a photo of the three of us in the lobby for the paper."

"The three of us?"

"You, me and my mother. After that, stay out of the way. Jillian's speaking."

"About what?"

"Second Kitchen. The foundation's cooking thing for kids. She's the face of it now."

My hand went still on the envelope.

Second Kitchen met every Saturday morning in a community center on Taylor Street.

I had started it two years ago.

I had written every lesson and taught every class.

Twelve teenagers called me Miss Annie and didn't know my last name.

"She's the face of it," I said.

"She's good with people." He was already at the door. "Wear the gray dress. The long one."

The door shut.

His car pulled out of the drive.

I slid the signed page back into the envelope and pressed the flap down.

Jillian turned off the burner.

She leaned on my counter in my robe and looked at me for a long time.

"So," she said.

I didn't say anything.

"Three years." She tilted her head. "I honestly didn't think you had it in you."

"You read it."

"I read the top." She picked up another strip of bacon and gave it to Biscuit. "That was enough."

"Then you know he didn't."

"I know he's very busy."

She came around the island.

She stopped close enough that I could smell my own shampoo in her hair.

"Here's what's going to happen," she said. "You're going to file that. Quietly. And he's going to find out when it's done."

"Why would you help me?"

"Help you?" She laughed. "Annie. I'm helping me."

She walked to the stairs with the dog trotting after her.

Then she stopped and turned the way she had last night.

"I read it, Annie," she said. "Don't worry. I won't tell him."

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