Maybe another explanation he could dismiss.
Instead, I reached down, removed the small anniversary clutch from the back of my chair, and turned toward the ballroom doors.
“Sarah.”
I stopped but did not turn.
“We’ll discuss this at home.”
That sentence almost made me smile.
Home.
Richard had not slept there in three nights.
Chloe had returned to Manhattan on Monday.
Richard had suddenly developed three consecutive late strategy sessions.
His driver had brought a fresh suit to an apartment on Park Avenue Tuesday morning.
His assistant had accidentally copied me on the delivery confirmation.
I had said nothing.
I had still come to the gala.
I had still chosen the earrings Eleanor gave me for our wedding.
I had still reserved a private table at our favorite restaurant for after the event because some embarrassingly hopeful part of me believed Richard might remember what the date meant.
Now I understood that hope could become a kind of self-disrespect when you kept offering it to someone who did not value it.
I looked over my shoulder.
“No,” I said. “We won’t.”
Then I walked out.
The autumn air outside the hotel was sharp and clean.
For the first time all evening, I could breathe.
My driver, Martin, jumped out when he saw me.
“Mrs. Bennett? Is everything all right?”
“No.”
It surprised me how easily the truth came out.
I opened the rear door myself.
“Take me to the Hudson residence.”
He hesitated.
The Hudson residence was a corporate apartment Horizon maintained downtown for visiting executives. Almost no one used it anymore.
“Not the townhouse?”
“Not tonight.”
Martin looked at me through the mirror after we pulled into traffic.
I had known him eleven years. He had driven Richard before Richard became CEO. He had driven me to the hospital when Leo was born because Richard had been in Frankfurt.
Martin had never asked me a personal question.
He didn’t ask one now.
He simply turned off the radio.
Manhattan moved past the windows in gold and white streaks.
People were standing outside restaurants.
A couple argued beside a taxi.
A woman in running clothes waited for a light with a golden retriever.
Normal lives.
Ordinary problems.
I pressed my forehead against the cool window and wondered when my own life had become a corporate arrangement that looked beautiful from the outside and felt empty from within.
The Hudson apartment smelled faintly of cedar and unused furniture.
I switched on one lamp.
That was enough.
There were no family photographs.
No framed magazine covers featuring Richard.
No tiny sneakers beside the mudroom bench.
No suit jackets left across dining chairs.
No reminder that for five years I had measured my days by the presence or absence of one man.
I removed my earrings.
Then my shoes.
Finally, I stood in front of the bathroom mirror.
I looked tired.
Not ruined.
