He Held Her at the Concert novel · Chapter 5 of 24
Chapter 5: Night Two
The ticket came in an envelope at the diner on Thursday afternoon, hand-delivered by a woman in a headset.
Section 112, seat 4, same row as the night before.
On the back, in blue pen: "Seat's yours. Nobody has to know you used it. D."
"No," I said.
"Hannah," Maggie said.
"I'm not going back there. Half the building has seen my face."
"Half the building thinks you're a hero."
"Half the building took a video of my hand."
Maggie's cousin, who did divorces in Astoria and wore no watch of any kind, spoke from the booth where she was marking up a document.
"You want to know when to serve him?" she said. "When he can't leave."
"He can't leave a concert?"
"Not the one where his best client is on stage and his clients are in the box. He can't walk out, he can't make a scene, and he can't say he never got it."
She slid the stapled pages across the table.
"Petition for divorce. Dissolution of marital property, including the accounts. I'm sending a process server. You stand there. You don't say anything."
"I don't say anything," I said.
"It's the hardest part."
That evening I took the subway in my gray coat and my own face.
Maggie came, in a green dress and her good earrings, and bought us both soft pretzels the size of a hubcap.
Inside, the arena was bigger and louder than it had been the night before.
I walked the long corridor with my ticket in my fist.
People looked.
A woman at the concession stand said, "That's her," and then, to me, "Good for you, honey."
Nobody laughed at me.
I sat in section 112 with my coat across my knees, and the seat beside me was Maggie's, and for the first time in three years nobody in my life was late.
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