Chapter 2 - The Hundredth Day
“Divorce me without making a scene. Amber has just given me the son you never could.”
For three years, I had imagined a hundred versions of Tristan coming home.
In some, he dropped his suitcase and wrapped both arms around me before I could say his name. In others, he laughed when he saw the welcome-home sign I had almost brought to the airport. Once, during one of Rosemary’s better weeks, his mother and I had even joked that I would probably embarrass myself by crying before he made it through customs.
None of those versions included a young woman in a yellow dress.
None included a baby.
And none included my husband standing beneath the enormous blue Gate 7 sign at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, looking at me as if I were an administrative inconvenience he had forgotten to resolve.
Travelers streamed around us.
A little girl ran into her grandfather’s arms ten feet away. A businessman barked into his phone. Somewhere behind me, an airport announcement called passengers for a flight to Denver.
Yet all I heard was Tristan’s sentence repeating inside my head.
The son you never could.
The woman beside him tightened one arm around the baby while holding Tristan’s sleeve with the other.
She was beautiful in the deliberate way people become beautiful when they know they are about to be seen by someone whose opinion matters. Her brown hair fell in polished waves over one shoulder, and a pink flower was pinned above her ear. Her pale-yellow dress looked far too elegant for a long flight with an infant.
She stared at me.
“So you’re Shelby?”
I said nothing.
Her eyes moved over my pale pink jacket, pleated skirt, and cream handbag.
Then she smiled.
“I thought you’d be the housekeeper.”
Tristan exhaled impatiently.
“Amber.”
“What?” she said. “You said she stayed home taking care of your mother.”
Stayed home.
The phrase nearly made me laugh.
Instead, I looked at Tristan.
He had changed.
Not dramatically. That might have been easier.
His dark hair was shorter. His shoulders seemed broader. There were new lines at the corners of his eyes. A silver watch gleamed beneath his cuff—a watch expensive enough that I immediately calculated how many of Rosemary’s dialysis sessions it could have covered.
For the first four months after Tristan left for Vancouver, he had sent money regularly.
Then the excuses started.
International banking delays.
Temporary housing costs.
Training fees.
Tax issues.
A promotion opportunity he couldn’t explain.
For almost two years, I had stopped asking.
I had learned how humiliating it felt to beg my own husband for money to pay for his mother’s medication while seeing photographs online of corporate dinners, ski weekends, and expensive restaurants.
But I had still defended him to Rosemary.
“He’s building something for our future,” I would say.
Even after I stopped believing it.
Tristan put one hand on the handle of his black suitcase.
“I’m trying to make this easier.”
“For whom?”
His expression tightened.
“Shelby, please.”
Amber adjusted the sleeping baby against her chest.
“Tristan told me you two have basically been separated for years.”
That finally made me look at her.
“Did he?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting.”
Tristan moved between us.
“This is exactly why I didn’t want a public scene.”
I almost admired the arrogance required to believe I was the one creating a scene.
“You brought another woman and a baby to an airport where you knew your wife was waiting for you.”
His jaw flexed.
“I didn’t know you’d actually come.”
That hurt more than I expected.
I had asked for his arrival information six times.
He had answered only once.
Flight 836. Noon.
No heart.
No “miss you.”
No “can’t wait to see you.”
Just numbers.
Still, I had come.
Not because I expected a romantic reunion anymore.
Because Rosemary had asked me to.
Three weeks before she died, during one of the last afternoons when her mind was clear, she had held my hand and whispered, “When my boy comes home, don’t meet cruelty with cruelty.”
At the time, I had not understood.
Now I did.
Tristan glanced around impatiently.
“Amber and I have already discussed everything. We’re going to stay at the house for a few weeks while we arrange something permanent.”
I blinked.
“The house?”
“Mom’s house.”
He said it casually.
As though Rosemary were still sitting in her recliner waiting to welcome him.
As though he had spoken to her yesterday.
As though he knew anything.
“Maple Avenue has always belonged to my family,” he continued. “You know that.”
Amber’s shoulders relaxed.
Apparently, this part of the speech had been rehearsed.
“You can stay temporarily if you need time to move,” Tristan said. “But I don’t want confusion. Amber and the baby need stability.”
I looked at the infant.
He couldn’t have been more than six months old.
Tiny fingers curled beside his cheek.
He was innocent.
That mattered.
Whatever I felt toward Tristan, none of it belonged on that child.
“What’s his name?” I asked.
Amber’s expression softened with pride.
“Oliver.”
Tristan smiled for the first time since seeing me.
It was the smile that almost broke me.
I remembered begging him to come home when Rosemary had fractured her hip.
He had told me an important presentation made it impossible.
I remembered sleeping in a chair outside the ICU after her infection turned septic.
I remembered calling him at 2:14 in the morning.
No answer.
Again at 2:26.
No answer.
At 3:08, he sent a text.
Can’t talk. Call tomorrow.
Apparently, while I was holding his mother’s hand in intensive care, he had been building another family.
“Oliver,” I repeated.
Amber kissed the baby’s forehead.
“He looks exactly like his father.”
Tristan’s eyes met mine.
There it was.
The final twist of the knife.
I had wanted children.
For eight years.
Doctors, tests, injections, whispered conversations in sterile offices, months of hope followed by disappointment.
Tristan had once cried beside me after our third failed fertility treatment.
At least I had believed he was crying.
Now he leaned closer.
“This doesn’t need to be ugly.”
“It already is.”
His face hardened.
“I’m offering you fifty thousand dollars.”
I stared at him.
Amber looked surprised, as though she had expected me to be grateful.
“Fifty thousand?”
“To start over.”
He lowered his voice.
“You haven’t had a real job in years, Shelby. I know you sacrificed time taking care of Mom, and I appreciate that, but realistically, you need help.”
My fingers tightened around my handbag.
A real job.
At first, I had designed projects from a card table beside Rosemary’s bed because I needed grocery money.
Then came a book cover for an independent publisher.
Then another.
A logo for a Phoenix restaurant.
Branding for a legal firm.
Advertising campaigns.
Packaging.
Corporate rebrands.
I worked after Rosemary slept.
Sometimes until four in the morning.
By the third year, my freelance business earned more than my old agency salary.
Tristan didn’t know.
Why would he?
He had stopped asking about my life.
“You think I need your fifty thousand dollars?”
“I think you need to be practical.”
I almost told him.
Instead, Rosemary’s voice came back to me.
Don’t meet cruelty with cruelty.
So I reached into my handbag.
Tristan’s expression changed the moment he saw the clear document folder.
His shoulders relaxed.
There was actually relief in his eyes.
He thought I had prepared some desperate appeal.
Maybe medical records.
Maybe marriage counseling information.
Maybe a letter reminding him who we used to be.
“The divorce papers are already prepared,” I said.
His smile disappeared.
Amber stared at me.
Tristan reached for the folder.
I pulled it back.
“What are you doing?”
“Not here.”
His eyebrows drew together.
“If you’re agreeing to the divorce, give them to me.”
“There’s somewhere we need to go first.”
“I just got off a flight.”
“You’ve been gone three years.”
That silenced him.
I looked toward Oliver.
“There’s a gathering at the house today.”
“What gathering?”
“Someone has been waiting a long time to see you.”
Amber immediately stiffened.
“I’m not taking my baby into that old house.”
“It’s clean.”
She frowned.
“It’s also decorated,” I continued. “Brightly lit. Filled with flowers.”
Tristan searched my face.
For the first time, I saw uncertainty.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing you shouldn’t see.”
He hesitated.
Then arrogance won.
“Fine. We go there, I sign, and this ends today.”
“Agreed.”
The taxi ride to Maple Avenue lasted forty-seven minutes.
Nobody spoke much.
Amber sat beside Tristan in the back seat while I sat in front.
Every few minutes, I caught their reflection in the rearview mirror.
Tristan touched Oliver’s tiny foot.
Amber leaned against his shoulder.
They looked like a family.
Three years earlier, the sight would have destroyed me.
That afternoon, it simply confirmed something I had already learned.
A marriage could die long before anyone signed the paperwork.
When we reached Maple Avenue, Tristan frowned.
There were cars parked along both sides of the street.
“Who are these people?”
“You’ll recognize some.”
He paid the driver.
I stepped onto the sidewalk.
The old house looked almost exactly as it had when he left.
Rosemary’s roses still climbed the trellis beside the porch.
The brass numbers still leaned slightly crooked.
Only the curtains were new.
Tristan pulled his suitcase up the walkway.
“This place needs work.”
I said nothing.
He inserted his old key.
It still fit.
That surprised him.
He opened the door.
Amber followed him.
I remained two steps behind.
Tristan switched on the living room lights.
Amber screamed.
His suitcase fell sideways.
The dining table had been removed.
In its place stood a memorial altar covered in white flowers, candles, and framed photographs.
At the center was Rosemary.
She was smiling in the portrait, wearing the lavender dress she had worn at our wedding.
The same pearl earrings.
The same warm eyes.
Before her photograph sat roasted chicken, seasoned vegetables, and black coffee.
Her favorite meal.
Tristan stopped breathing.
“No.”
The word came out like air escaping a broken container.
I walked past him.
I had changed into black earlier that morning before leaving for the airport, though my pink coat had hidden most of it.
Now I removed the coat.
Tristan stared.
I placed three incense sticks before Rosemary’s portrait.
His lips trembled.
“No.”
Amber clutched Oliver.
“Tristan?”
He stepped toward the photograph.
“What is this?”
I turned.
“Today marks one hundred days since your mother passed away.”
His face emptied.
Then his knees hit the floor.
The sound echoed through the living room.
“You’re lying.”
I looked at him.
“I called you thirty-eight times during her final week.”
He shook his head violently.
“No.”
“I left messages.”
“No.”
“She asked for you.”
He pressed both hands against the floor.
Amber whispered his name.
I reached into the clear folder.
Tristan looked up.
Whatever arrogance he had carried through the airport was gone.
“You should stand up,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because your mother left more than a memorial behind.”
From the hallway came the sound of footsteps.
A gray-haired man in a charcoal suit entered the living room carrying a leather briefcase.
Tristan recognized him immediately.
“Mr. Ellison?”
Graham Ellison had been Rosemary’s attorney for nearly thirty years.
He stopped beside me.
“Hello, Tristan.”
Tristan stared between us.
“What is he doing here?”
Graham opened his briefcase.
“Your mother asked me to be here today.”
Tristan slowly rose.
“For what?”
Graham removed a sealed legal envelope.
“To read her final will.”
May you like
And for the first time since his plane landed, Tristan looked afraid.
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