Shadow of Her: When He Realized Too Late novel · Chapter 1 of 16
Chapter 1: Go to Sleep First
Annabel leaves the divorce papers on the coffee table and waits for Langston, who comes home at midnight with Jillian and puts her in the master bedroom.
The week after our wedding, I asked my husband if I could sleep in the master bedroom.
Langston didn't even look up from his laptop.
"No. Jillian wouldn't like it."
I stood in the doorway of his study in my new silk pajamas.
"We're married," I said.
"Because of you." He finally looked at me.
"If you hadn't done what you did back then, none of us would be here. Leave it the way it is."
Jillian Pembrook was the girl he'd loved since college.
I said "okay."
It took me a long time to get the word out.
Then I went back down the hall to the guest room and shut the door.
That was three years ago.
Tonight I sat in that same study with a stack of paper in front of me.
It was a divorce agreement.
I read every page.
Under property, I had asked for nothing.
The house in Winnetka was his before the wedding, so it stayed his.
The cars were his.
The shares in Aldridge Development were his.
All I was taking was the forty-one thousand dollars I'd saved from my years at the bakery.
I signed at the bottom.
Annabel Sorel.
I'd kept my own name. His mother had called that "a little sad."
Our marriage was a deal from the first day.
My parents' packaging plant in Cicero was drowning in debt.
His family's company was being sued by the federal government over a piece of riverfront land my father used to own.
My father's old records could clear them.
Their money could save us.
The Aldridges wanted it tied up tight, so there was a wedding at Holy Name Cathedral.
I remember thinking the vows might still mean something.
I remember thinking he might look at me one day.
I slid the agreement into a manila envelope.
I carried it to the living room and set it in the middle of the glass coffee table.
Then I opened my messages and typed to him.
"Please come home early tonight. I need to talk to you about something."
Two minutes went by.
"Okay."
I put the phone face down on the sofa.
I went into the kitchen and poured a glass of ice water.
The kitchen was the nicest room in the house.
German ovens. A double refrigerator. A marble island nobody ever sat at.
I used to be a pastry chef.
I hardly cooked in here anymore.
In our first month, I tried three times.
The first night I made beef stew, the way my grandmother taught me.
He ate four bites and said it was fine.
Then his phone rang, and he left, because Jillian needed him.
The second night I made salmon with lemon and butter.
He didn't come home at all.
The third night I cooked from four in the afternoon until seven.
Roast chicken, potatoes, green beans, a pear tart with the edges crimped by hand.
At seven fifteen the front door opened.
I heard laughing.
Langston came in with Jillian right behind him, her cheeks pink from the cold.
He stopped when he saw the table.
"We're going out," he said.
Jillian leaned around his shoulder and looked at me with her head tilted.
"Oh, Annie. Thank you for going to all this trouble."
She smiled.
I scraped the whole table into the trash that night.
I never cooked for him again.
Now I drank my ice water and watched the clock on the oven.
Seven came.
He wasn't home.
Eight came.
At nine my phone buzzed on the sofa.
"Something's come up with Jillian. I'll be late. Go to sleep first, don't wait for me."
I read it over and over.
Go to sleep first, don't wait for me.
He had sent me that exact line for three years.
When Jillian had a cold, he had to be with her.
When Jillian was sad, he had to be with her.
When Jillian moved apartments, he carried the boxes.
When Jillian brought home a golden retriever puppy, he had to be there to meet it.
One night she wanted cupcakes from a little bakery on the West Side.
He drove forty minutes each way.
He waited in her apartment while she ate them.
He walked in our door at one in the morning.
I asked him if he'd had dinner.
"I ate at Jillian's."
Then he showered and went into his study and closed the door.
Every other time, I wrote back "okay."
Sometimes I added "drive safe," so I'd seem like the kind of wife who didn't mind.
Tonight I put the phone down without typing anything.
I sat on the sofa beside the envelope and waited.
I didn't go to sleep first.
At twelve ten, headlights swept across the front windows.
The door opened.
Langston came in with his coat over his arm.
Jillian came in behind him in a cream wool coat, holding a pink leash.
Her golden retriever trotted across my floor and sniffed at my knees.
"Biscuit, no," Jillian said, laughing.
Langston walked right past the coffee table.
He didn't look at the envelope.
He didn't look at me.
"A pipe burst in Jillian's building," he said. "She's staying here tonight."
"The guest room across from mine is made up," I said.
"She'll take the master."
I stood up.
"The master bedroom," I said. "The one I asked for."
His jaw set.
"Don't start, Annabel. It's late."
He carried Jillian's bag up the stairs.
Jillian followed him slowly, one hand on the rail, the dog bumping her legs.
Halfway up, she stopped and looked back down at me.
"He told me you asked him for this room once," she said. "That's so sweet."
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