Seven Days to Lose Your Husband novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Film

On his last day at Larkspur the lobby film has no photograph of him, Beatrice tells the staff her family gave Adeline her start, Preston takes the stage wearing the ring, and Ingrid hands in her own badge in front of everyone.

That night, in the Somerville kitchen, I wrote my resignation from Larkspur Design.

Adeline and I had built the company together, starting in a rented warehouse with one space heater.

I had met clients beside her, rewritten proposals at two in the morning, and slept on a folding cot under the drafting table.

I sent the letter at eleven.

She approved it in four minutes and added a note.

I'll give you time to cool down. When the seven days are over, we'll talk about you coming back.

She still believed it was part of the game.

Friday was the fifth day of the game, the seventh anniversary of Larkspur, and my last day.

I arrived at nine to hand in my access card and move my projects to other people.

The lobby had been decorated with white flowers and a long banner.

Larkspur: Seven Years.

A screen on the far wall played the anniversary film on a loop, and forty of my coworkers stood watching it with coffee in their hands.

I stopped in the doorway and watched it too.

The warehouse was there, bare and cold, but the two people standing in front of it were Adeline and her mother.

The first signed contract was there, with Adeline's hand holding the pen.

The cot was gone.

In the shot of the opening party, a space had been cropped beside her, and the cropping was clumsy enough that you could see the edge of my shoulder.

Every photo of me had been removed, and nobody had bothered to close the gaps.

Heads began to turn toward me, one at a time.

A young designer I'd trained looked at the screen, then at me, then at her shoes.

I walked past all of them to the front desk.

"Elias," the receptionist whispered. "I didn't know. I'm so sorry."

I put my access card on the counter.

Then I took out my laptop and started the transfer, project by project, with every colleague watching.

Behind me the lobby doors opened.

Beatrice came in on Preston's arm, wearing pearls and a cream suit, and Adeline followed a step behind them in a white dress.

The staff clapped, uncertain.

Beatrice stopped in front of the screen and turned to face the room.

"Thank you all for coming," she said. "Seven years ago my husband and I gave our daughter her start. We put our faith in her, and look what she has built."

She raised a hand toward the film.

"Not everyone who is lucky enough to be given a start knows to be grateful," she said. "Some of us are still waiting to hear a thank-you."

A few people laughed, because they thought they were supposed to.

My thumb stopped on the trackpad.

I thought of a bank transfer I had signed seven years ago, in a lawyer's office in Worcester, on a day I hadn't wanted to remember.

I closed the laptop and said nothing.

"Preston," Beatrice said, smiling, "you'll say a few words."

He walked up to the little stage beside the screen.

The signet ring was on his right hand.

He held the microphone and smiled at Adeline across the room.

"I'd like to thank my wife," he said.

Everybody laughed.

Phones came up all around the room, and the livestream icon glowed red on three of them.

Adeline stood a few feet from the stage in her white dress, smiling at me.

She was waiting.

The room waited with her.

I looked at the film, at the cropped edge of my shoulder in the corner of the frame, and I looked at her.

I felt nothing I could have shouted about.

I picked up my bag from the front desk.

"My projects are all in the shared drive," I said to the room. "Ingrid has the passwords. Thank you for seven years."

I turned toward the doors.

"Elias, wait," Adeline said, and then she laughed. "Don't be dramatic."

Nobody moved.

Then Ingrid stepped out of the crowd, walked up to the front desk and laid her own access card beside mine.

"I'm going with him," she said, loud enough for the whole lobby.

A designer I knew pushed through behind her and set down his card too.

Then another.

Beatrice stopped smiling.

"This is a family celebration," she said. "Take your toys and go."

Ingrid took her coat off the rack.

"Gladly," she said.

I held the door for her.

The sun was bright on the steps, and my phone buzzed in my pocket.

It was Adeline.

Two more days of the game, then it ends on Sunday. Come home, Elias. We'll end it properly, the way we always do.

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