Chapter 6 - The Sound of Closing Doors
By 6:00 PM on Tuesday, the rain had returned to Richmond, drumming a steady, melancholic beat against the windshield of my station wagon as I sat parked across the street from David’s newly rented downtown apartment.
It wasn't a bad apartment—a modern brick mid-rise with narrow balconies and small, square windows overlooking a paved parking lot. It was efficient, sterile, and entirely temporary.
I watched through the rain-streaked glass as a silver sedan pulled into the lot. David got out, holding a small cardboard box in his arms, his shoulders hunched against the cold drizzle. He looked smaller than he had at the park, smaller than he had in his corner office. The tailored polo and expensive designer jeans looked like a costume he had forgotten how to wear.
A moment later, the passenger door of the sedan opened, and Lauren stepped out, holding a large designer handbag over her head to shield her hair from the rain. She said something sharply to him, her mouth moving in angry, clipped syllables, before she turned and marched toward the building entrance without waiting for him to unlock the door.
David stood in the parking lot for a long moment, the rain soaking into his hair, looking down at the box in his hands. Then, slowly, he followed her inside.
I shifted my car into drive, signaled, and pulled away from the curb.
My phone rang through the car’s Bluetooth system just as I hit the highway off-ramp. It was Sarah Hamilton.
"Claire," Sarah’s voice came through the speakers, crisp and triumphant. "Just got off the phone with Marcus Vance. David signed the settlement papers without a single revision. No alimony demands, no contesting the house equity, no fighting over the retirement accounts. He literally signed away his right to the primary vehicle and took the twenty-year-old riding lawnmower instead."
"The riding lawnmower?" I couldn't help the small smile that touched my lips. "Well, he always did take pride in his stripes on the front lawn."
"He's broke, Claire," Sarah said, her tone sobering slightly. "The corporate audit at Apex uncovered six hundred thousand dollars in unaccounted liabilities tied to that Cayman LLC. The board is suing him and Lauren for full recovery of the funds. They're going to lose the apartment, the car, and whatever savings he had socked away."
"He made his choices, Sarah," I said, merging into the steady stream of evening traffic. "Nobody forced him to build a house of cards."
"True," Sarah paused, her voice softening. "So... what are you going to do now? The house is yours, the settlement is signed, the kids are grown. You can do literally anything."
I looked out the windshield at the wet asphalt reflecting the glowing red taillights of the city ahead. For twenty-seven years, my horizon had been bounded by David’s schedules, David’s moods, David’s career, and David’s expectations.
Now, the map was completely blank.
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"I think," I said slowly, a quiet, fierce excitement blooming in my chest, "I'm going to take that trip to Raven’s Roost. And this time, I’m not coming back before dark."
"Enjoy the mountains, Claire," Sarah laughed. "You earned every inch of the view."
