My lawyer called Derek the same week.
He didn’t contest much. He asked to keep the car, and the house we’d bought together went on the market in November. I let him have the espresso machine. He never asked about the wrap.
His brother called me once. “He’s really struggling, Nora. He feels like his whole life blew up in one night.”
“It didn’t blow up in one night,” I said. “It blew up in one glass. He just didn’t notice the rest.”
Glen sent me a card. Inside it said, “I’m sorry I laughed.” Nothing else. I kept it.
Tasha got promoted in January. That one I had nothing to do with either. She earned it.
In February, Paige sent me an email from her Denver address. It was short.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me. He told me you two were separating, and I wanted to believe it. I laughed because he laughed. I’m sorry I laughed.”
Two people had now sent me the same four words. Neither of them was the one holding the glass.
I didn’t answer her. Not out of spite. I just didn’t have anything to add.
Derek’s apology came in April, handwritten, three pages. Most of it was about his father, and the merger, and how small he’d felt at Callowell. One line near the end was about me.
“I think I needed you to be small so I could feel big.”
It was the most honest thing he’d ever written to me. It was also about six years too late.
I took the wrap to an old dry cleaner on Fifth who still does silk by hand. The owner held it up to the window and clicked her tongue.
“Red wine on silk,” she said. “Who did this?”
“Someone who’s not around anymore.”
She got most of it out. Not all. There’s a faint pink mark near the left shoulder, about the size of a thumbprint. She offered to try again. I said no.
Our daughter was born in December, two weeks early. I named her June, after my mother’s middle name.
Derek came to the hospital. He held her for a long time. He cried. I believe he loves her. I believe he’ll be a decent father, in the hours the court gives him.
I’m not angry anymore. Most days I don’t think about the rooftop at all.
But some nights, when June won’t sleep, I take the wrap out of its tissue paper and lay it over her blanket. She grabs at the hem my mother rolled by hand. Her fingers always find the little pink mark.
One day she’ll ask about it. I’ll tell her the truth.
That a man once poured a glass of wine on her mother to make her leave a room. And that her mother stayed, walked up to the stage, and ran the place.
Some people tell me I should have fired him that Monday myself, with HR watching, and let him feel it.
Others say “Monday. Nine a.m. My office.” and then handing him to the board was the smartest thing I did.
Would you have fired him on the spot, or let the board do it?
