CHAPTER EIGHT, The Papers

The lawyer's office was on the fourteenth floor of a building downtown that looked like it had been designed to make people feel small.

Helena arrived five minutes early. She sat in the waiting area with her coat in her lap and her back straight and her hands folded and she looked at the city through the floor to ceiling window and thought about nothing in particular. That was something she had learned in the last few days. How to think about nothing. It was harder than it sounded but she was getting better at it.

Damian arrived two minutes later.

He saw her the moment he walked in. She watched him adjust. Watched him decide what his face was going to do. He chose neutral. She respected that.

Helena. He said.

Damian. She said.

They sat on opposite sides of the waiting area until the lawyer called them in.

The room was the kind of quiet that had carpet and heavy furniture and no windows. The lawyer said things. Helena listened and said yes in the right places and kept her hands folded in her lap and her face exactly where she needed it to be.

Then the papers were in front of her.

She picked up the pen.

Did not hesitate.

Signed her name.

Slid the papers back across the table and stood up.

Damian said her name. Just her name. Low and direct the way he always said it, the way that used to make her feel like the only person in whatever room they were in.

She stopped.

I hope you find what you are looking for. She said.

And walked out.

She did not fall apart in the elevator. Or the lobby. She pushed through the revolving door and stepped out onto the street and the afternoon air hit her face and she kept walking. Head up. Hands steady. One foot then the other.

She was almost at the corner when she stopped.

Twenty meters ahead of her coming out of the restaurant on the corner were two people.

Damian had not come out of the building yet. This was not Damian.

This was Camila.

And the man beside her was someone Helena did not recognise but who was leaning toward Camila the way men leaned toward women they were very interested in. Camila was laughing at something he said. She had a coffee in one hand and her phone in the other and she looked like a woman who had everything going exactly the way she wanted it to go.

Then Camila looked up.

And saw Helena.

The laugh did not disappear exactly. It just became something else. Something more composed. More careful. Camila said something to the man beside her and he glanced over and then stepped back slightly and Camila walked toward Helena alone.

Helena did not move.

Helena. Camila said. Warm. Easy. Like they were acquaintances who had run into each other at a market. I heard you were signing today.

You heard correctly. Helena said.

Camila looked at her with those composed unreadable eyes. I know this is hard. I want you to know I never intended for things to happen this way.

Helena looked at the woman in front of her. At the careful warmth of her. At the coffee in her hand and the composed expression and the way she was standing like she had already won something and was being gracious about it.

Camila. Helena said pleasantly. I am going to say this once.

Camila waited.

Whatever you intended does not matter to me. What matters is what you did. And what you did tells me everything I need to know about who you are. She smiled. Not a big smile. Just enough. Enjoy your afternoon.

She walked past her.

She did not look back.

She got to her car and sat inside it for three full minutes and her hands were shaking and she let them shake because there was nobody to perform steadiness for anymore and that was actually fine. That was allowed.

Then she drove back to the neutral apartment.

She made tea. She sat on the windowsill with the Christmas photo beside her and the jar of rosemary on the counter and the city outside doing its usual thing.

She was divorced.

That word sat in her chest and she turned it over and examined it from every angle and it did not feel the way she had expected it to feel. It felt like a door. Not a wall. A door.

She was still sitting there at eleven that night when her phone buzzed on the counter.

She reached for it without thinking.

A text. From Damian.

Three words.

I miss you.

Helena read it once. Read it again. Set the phone down on the windowsill and looked at it like it was something that had appeared without explanation.

He had just signed the papers. He had just watched her walk out. He had Camila. He had chosen all of this with his eyes open.

And he was texting I miss you at eleven o clock at night.

She picked up the phone.

And for the first time since any of this started she did not feel the weight of it pressing down on her chest. She felt something else entirely. Something lighter. Something that was almost like the beginning of being angry in a way that was going to be very useful to her.

She put the phone face down on the counter.

You do not get to miss me Damian Graves. She said out loud to the apartment.

The apartment said nothing back.

But this time she smiled when she said it.

She was still smiling when her phone lit up again.

Not Damian this time.

The same unknown number from last night.

She stared at it. The same number that had sent you should know what you are walking away from while she was lying in the dark of her first night alone.

She picked it up.

One new message.

He is not who you think he is. And neither is she.

Helena read it once.

Then again.

She looked at the jar of rosemary on the counter. At the Christmas photo on the windowsill. At the apartment that was starting to feel like hers.

Her hands were not shaking.

But something had shifted in the room.

She typed back one word. Who is this.

She waited.

Three dots appeared on the screen.

Then they disappeared.

Then nothing.

Helena sat at the windowsill for a long time with her phone in her hand and the city outside and a silence that no longer felt like peace.