Too Late, Don Russo: His Pregnant Wife Signed First novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Anniversary Papers
Betsy finds the divorce papers already signed in Don's study, signs beneath him and walks into the snow, and a text from Valeria tells her to rest.
On our third anniversary, three hundred guests raised their glasses to my husband, and not one of them asked my name.
I stood beside Don at the front of the ballroom, smiling at nothing.
He thanked everyone for coming.
Then he turned to me for a second and said into the microphone, "And thank you, Betsy. You have never asked me for anything."
Everyone applauded.
I had picked the champagne they were drinking.
I had arranged every white rose they were standing under.
Ten minutes later my dress strap tore, and I slipped into the powder room to fix it.
Valeria Ferraro was at the mirror, touching up her lipstick.
She was Don's first love, home from two years in Milan, in a red dress that made the whole ballroom look gray.
Before tonight I had spoken to her twice.
"Oh, you poor thing, let me," she said, and she pinned my strap with her own diamond brooch.
"You look beautiful, Betsy. Don talks about you all the time."
He did not.
"There's a sewing kit in his study," she said. "Go up and do it properly. Nobody will miss you."
She said it so sweetly that I thanked her.
The study door at the end of the upstairs hall stood open an inch.
A man was laughing inside.
It was Marco Ferraro, Don's best friend, the company's COO, and Valeria's older brother.
He had given a toast at my wedding.
He had a phone against his ear.
"It's done, he's signed," Marco said. "Don tells the board over breakfast tomorrow, and the reporters are already booked."
I stopped breathing.
"My sister moves in before spring."
Someone on the line said something.
"Betsy? Come on. No lawyer, no relatives, no money except his. She'll send him a thank-you card for the payout."
He laughed again.
I stood in the hall with a glass of champagne gone warm in my hand.
When Marco walked out the other door, I went in.
The papers lay on the desk, squared to the edge.
Little yellow flag tabs stuck out of the pages, the kind Marco puts on everything.
Don's signature ran across the last line in black ink.
Beside it was a yellow sticky note in his handwriting.
Tell her after the gala. Keep it quiet.
Under his name was one empty line, waiting for me.
He planned to tell me tomorrow, in front of cameras, on his schedule.
I decided he would not get the cameras.
I took the gold pen I had bought him for his thirtieth birthday.
I wrote Betsy Penberthy Russo on the line.
Then I struck out Russo.
My hand stayed steady until the pen touched the desk, and then the rest of me came apart.
My knees gave way.
I sat on the study rug and pushed my fist into my mouth so nobody downstairs would hear.
For three years people had told me I was too quiet and too plain to feel what a woman like Valeria felt.
They were wrong.
I felt all of it.
When I could stand, I went out onto the balcony.
Don was in the middle of the dance floor, holding Valeria close, his mouth by her ear.
For one second he lifted his eyes and looked straight up at me.
Valeria laid her hand on his cheek and turned his face back.
He smiled at her.
He kept dancing.
Three years of marriage, and I got one glance.
I pulled off my wedding ring and dropped it on the signed papers.
I took my clutch and went down the back stairs into the kitchen.
The head cook looked up from the dessert trays. "Mrs. Russo? Are you all right?"
"Please don't tell anyone you saw me," I said.
She nodded slowly and held the back door open.
The snow hit my bare arms.
Behind me the band started a slow song.
I laid my palm over my stomach.
Six weeks pregnant.
I had learned it three days ago and saved it for tonight.
I had planned to tell Don over dessert.
I walked two miles in heels to the bus station.
The ticket clerk stared at my smeared makeup and my four-thousand-dollar gown.
"Miss, do you need me to call someone?"
"No," I said. "One ticket to Harbor Point, Maine."
I sat down on a frozen bench and dialed the one number I still had.
"Grandma? It's Betsy."
"Honey, it's two in the morning. What happened?"
"I need to come home."
For a moment she said nothing.
Then she asked, very quietly, "What did he do to you?"
I hadn't cried on the walk.
I cried then.
Three years of living with a man who never asked how I was, and she had asked so simply.
"I don't think he ever wanted me," I said. "I just didn't want to know it."
"I'll be waiting at the stop. Don't you dare argue."
I hung up and watched the snow pile on my knees.
In eight hours Don would stand up at his board breakfast with a speech.
He would find out his quiet wife had finished it before him.
My phone buzzed on the bench.
It was Valeria.
"He hasn't noticed you're gone. I'll tell him you have a headache. Get some rest, Betsy."
I had never given her my number.
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