“You ruined their favorite storyline. The broken wife was apparently easier for them to process than the competent one.”
I smile.
“There’s still time for me to become a swamp witch.”
Naomi snorts into her drink.
“Please do. But keep the company.”
When I get home that night, there is a package waiting.
No return address.
Security checks it first.
Inside is a small silver baby rattle, antique and polished, along with a note in Ethan’s handwriting.
My mother bought this years ago. Meant it for my first child.
I thought maybe you should have it.
I don’t know why.
I stare at the note for a long time.
Then at the rattle.
Maybe he sent it because guilt finally found a tiny crack.
Maybe because he could not bear the object in his own house.
Maybe because, even now, he is still reaching toward women to finish the emotional thinking he never learned to do himself.
I do not answer.
Instead, I place the rattle in Margaret’s dressing room drawer beside her journal and lock it.
Not because it belongs to me.
Because not everything abandoned must be displayed.
Years pass.
Not in a blur, exactly, but in layers.
The company grows.
I grow with it.