My Second Life Starts With Divorce novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Nine Ten

Solveig sets her terms, hires a lawyer who has never met Declan, and sits in his hotel lobby through the minute she once died, where she watches him break down in relief.

I did not touch the coffee.

I looked at the photograph of the stone house until the screen went dark.

"Fine," I said. "Say I believe you about Warner."

"That's all I'm asking."

"Then here are my rules."

Declan put his phone away and waited.

"We help each other beat him. That's the whole arrangement. I don't owe you a favor and you don't owe me one."

"Agreed."

"And no questions about before. Not mine, not yours. I won't ask why you knew that street, and you don't ask me why I'm sitting here with my ring still on."

I looked at my left hand.

The ring was still there, and I had not noticed.

"Agreed," Declan said again.

He had said it too fast, both times.

"You didn't even think about it."

"I thought about it all the way here." He almost smiled. "Do you want my lawyer?"

"No. I want a lawyer neither of us knows."

"Good answer." He took a card from his coat and laid it on the table. "She's never met me. She doesn't take my money. Tell her what page nine was."

I picked up the card.

It was plain cream stock with a name and a phone number and nothing else.

"Why would you give me a lawyer who doesn't like you?"

"Because it means she won't lie to you," he said. "Call her today."

The lawyer's office was on the fourteenth floor of a building I could have walked to in my sleep.

She read the settlement, then asked me three questions about the shares, and then she took off her glasses.

"Your husband can't sell the company without you," she said. "Not a share of it, not a truck. He needs your forty percent or a board that outvotes it. He has neither."

"He has his mother's fifteen."

"And the other forty-five is spread across four old friends of your grandfather's who answer to you more than they answer to him."

I laughed, and the lawyer did not.

"Mrs. Tilden, the board meets in three weeks. Until then, don't sign anything that isn't from me."

"I'll sign nothing."

"Then you've already done better than most of my clients."

I left her office at four.

My phone had eleven missed calls.

Warner had called six times, Savannah four, and one number I did not know.

I stood in the lobby and listened to Warner's voicemail first.

"Cor, come home," he said. His voice had gone soft. "We got off on the wrong foot. We can fix the shares thing. Mom is upset, and she shouldn't be, it's our business."

I deleted it.

Savannah's voicemail was one long breath followed by a sob.

"Cor, please just pick up. You're the only person I've got. I don't know how to do this without you."

I stood there with my thumb above the screen.

For eleven years I had picked up on the first ring.

I deleted that one too.

The unknown number was Declan, and the message said only: The lobby of the Ferrow on Hennepin has a restaurant. People there until midnight. Whenever you want.

I did not answer.

I went back to my own hotel and sat on the bed and looked at the bag I had not unpacked.

At seven the room felt too small.

At eight I told myself I was being foolish.

At eight-thirty I put on my coat and took a cab to Hennepin.

The Ferrow had a high ceiling and a long bar, and every table was full.

I took a chair by the pillar where I could see the big clock over the front desk.

A waiter brought me a glass of water without being asked.

I did not look for Declan, and he did not come over.

When I finally turned my head, he was on a sofa across the lobby with a laptop open on his knees.

He had not once looked in my direction.

The minute hand crawled.

Eight fifty-five.

Nine.

I watched the people at the bar, and the revolving door turning.

Nine oh five.

My hands were wet.

I held the water glass with both of them, and a thought rose that I had not let myself have all day.

If I had been standing at that corner right now, I would have been alive for five more minutes.

Nine oh eight.

Nine oh nine.

The clock moved.

It was nine ten.

Nothing happened.

A woman laughed at the bar, a waiter dropped a spoon, and the door turned.

I sat with my glass and felt the minute go by.

Then the minute after it.

I looked across the lobby, because I could not help it.

Declan had closed his laptop.

He sat with his eyes shut and one hand gripping the arm of the sofa so hard that his knuckles had gone white.

His shoulders shook once, hard, and he put the back of his hand over his mouth.

He thought nobody could see him.

I watched a man I had met that morning cry with relief at nine ten.

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