Chapter 3: The Accounting
Monday morning I made a list.
Money lent for the suit. Money spent on alterations, shoes, the trial hair appointment, the difference on the venue deposit I had “helped” cover when his accounts were “frozen.” The total was not a fortune. It was enough to sting a woman who had been waiting for a fortune.
I took the ring to three jewelers. The first smiled the polite smile of someone who had seen this episode before. Cubic zirconia set in a decent mount. Resale value: negligible beyond scrap of craft. I sold the mount for a sum that covered a utility bill and left the stone in a dish on my sink like a bad joke.
Walter’s first pension installment arrived by transfer with a memo line: Suit loan 1/6. I stared at the notification until the numbers blurred. Repayment without apology. Precision without warmth. I did not message him thank-you. I did not message him anything.
My mother left job listings on the table. I hated her for it and loved her for not saying the listings aloud. On Wednesday I applied to three positions with a resume that still looked like a person who left every desk. On Thursday I sat through an interview and heard myself promise longevity I was not sure I could deliver. On Friday I was offered a trial shift at a boutique that paid in hours, not inheritances.
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The video from the wedding did not disappear. A local blogger called it a “romance experiment.” Commentators split between praising Walter and eviscerating me. I stopped reading when a stranger diagnosed my entire personality from a thirty-second clip. Dana—my cousin—showed up with takeout and confiscated my phone for two hours. “You don’t have to become a better person by noon,” she said. “You have to eat.”
I ate. I hated that Walter had been right about the staircase in my mind. I hated more that the staircase had been the only structure I had bothered to build.
