Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Lillian sat on the cold marble floor for a long time. She did not know how long she had been there. Minutes? Hours?

The divorce papers remained on the table, taunting her with their white edges and bold black letters.

Dissolution of Marriage.

She read those three words repeatedly until they blurred together.

The house felt enormous without Nathaniel in it. It always did. Their home in Oakfield was a grand estate, a wedding gift from William Brooks. Five bedrooms, a private garden, a pool. Everything a young bride could want. Everything except a husband who didn't want to be there.

Lillian slowly picked herself up from the floor. She walked to the bathroom, splashed cold water on her face, and stared at her reflection. Her eyes were swollen and red from crying. Her blonde hair was disheveled. She looked exactly how she felt.

Pathetic.

“Pull yourself together,” she whispered to herself.

She gripped the edge of the sink and breathed slowly. In and out. In and out.

Her phone rang on the counter. She glanced at the screen, expecting Nathaniel’s name and hoping, even now, that he had changed his mind and was calling to apologize.

But it was her mother, Margaret Harper.

Lillian let it ring. She was not ready for that conversation. Her mother would say the things she already knew. That Nathaniel was not worth it. That she had sacrificed too much. That a girl as smart and as beautiful as Lillian deserved better.

Her mother had been saying those things for the past three years but Lillian never listened.

She dried her face and walked back into the living room. Her eyes landed on the framed photograph sitting on the mantle above the fireplace. Their wedding photo. Nathaniel looked strikingly handsome in his dark suit. She stood beside him in a white gown that cost more than most people earned in a year.

They looked like the perfect couple in that photograph. Anyone looking at it would have believed they were deeply in love.

Lillian had believed it too, at first. She had told herself that his coldness was temporary. That the Nathaniel she grew up knowing was still somewhere inside the man she married. She just had to be patient. She just had to love him enough.

Three years later, she was still waiting.

She picked up the photograph and set it face down on the mantle. Then she walked to the table and picked up the divorce papers.

Her hands trembled slightly as she flipped through the pages. Nathaniel had been serious. His lawyers had prepared everything neatly and precisely. The divorce settlement was generous. She would inherit the estate and a financial allowance.

He wanted her gone so badly that he was willing to pay for it.

Lillian set the papers back down because she was not ready to sign them, not tonight.

She pulled out her phone and finally called her mother back. It rang once before Margaret picked up. 

“Lillian! I have been calling you. Why didn’t you pick up earlier? Are you alright?”

“Mama,” Lillian said. Her voice cracked on that single word. A brief silence passed between them.

“Nathaniel filed for divorce, didn’t he,” Margaret said. It was not a question.

Lillian exhaled. “Yes.”

She heard her mother sigh deeply on the other end. Not an I-told-you-so sigh. A tired, grieving sigh. The kind only a mother could make when watching her child suffer and being unable to stop it.

“Come home tonight,” Margaret said simply.

“I’m fine, Mama.”

“You are not fine. Come home.”

Lillian looked around the living room. The grand chandelier. The perfectly arranged furniture that she had picked out herself, hoping to make this house feel like a home. Only now, that hope was shattered.

“Okay,” she finally said. “I’ll come.”

***

The Harper family home was a thirteen-minute drive from the estate. Lillian drove herself, which she preferred. She needed the quiet. The dark road and the sound of the engine gave her something to focus on besides the ache in her chest.

When she arrived, her mother was already at the door.

Margaret Harper was a graceful woman in her late forties. She had Lillian’s same blonde hair and strong jawline. She opened her arms without a word, and Lillian walked straight into them like a child.

“I embarrassed myself,” Lillian said against her mother’s shoulder.

“You loved someone,” Margaret replied. “That is never something to be embarrassed about.”

“I begged him, Mama.” Lillian pulled back and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I got on my knees and begged him not to leave me. But he refused.”

Margaret pressed her lips together and cupped her daughter’s face gently. “Now you know that you gave everything you had. You have nothing left to question.”

Lillian shook her head slowly. “I wasted three years of my life with him.”

“No.” Margaret guided her inside and closed the door behind them. “You learned something in those three years. About yourself. About what or who you will never settle for again.”

They went inside and sat in the dining room together. Her mother made tea. It was chamomile, the same type she made every time Lillian cried as a little girl.

The warmth of the mug in her hands steadied her slightly.

“I think I will go back to school and finish my degree,” Lillian said quietly, almost to herself.

She had paused her nursing studies twice because of Nathaniel’s controlling demands.

“Of course, sweety,” her mother agreed simply.

After dinner, Lillian spent the night at her mother’s house. She slept in her old bedroom, surrounded by the things she had left behind when she moved into Nathaniel’s estate.

A thought settled over her as she lay in bed. She had forgotten who she was before Nathaniel Brooks. Maybe it was time to remember.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

She stared at the ceiling for a long time before she fell asleep.