The Fortune Inside Me

Chapter 3 Sign Here

Damian's eyebrows went up. He had clearly braced for a screaming match, maybe lawyers, and instead he got a broken woman surrendering on the first round. Pleasure flashed across his face before he remembered to hide it.

"What do you want?" he asked warily. "If this is about money, forget it. The company's drowning in debt right now. There's nothing to give you."

Drowning in debt. The man had four million in gold sitting behind his closet vent, and he could say that to my face without blinking. Seven years of marriage and he'd been rehearsing this version of me the whole time, the naive wife who believed whatever he told her.

"I don't want money." I cut him off, and my voice came out soft and hollow. "I'm taking my clothes and my toiletries. Nothing in this house is coming with me. I want this finished clean."

He stared at me for a second, recalculating. Then he shrugged, already bored of me again.

"Smartest thing you've said all year. Pack tonight and be gone. We sign at the courthouse first thing tomorrow."

He walked out without looking back, and the door clicked shut, and I wiped my face and got to work.

Seven years in that house, and packing it up took less than an hour. That tells you something. Most of what filled those rooms was his, the suits, the trophies, his whole version of our life. My share fit in one suitcase with room left over for seventy pounds of gold. I let myself have exactly one minute on the closet floor to feel sad about that, and then the minute was up.

I pulled the suitcase out from under the bed and laid my clothes over the gold in careful layers. Heaviest first, bars flat along the bottom, the cash bundles tucked into the corners. Then a handful of cheap toiletries on top, the kind of sad little pile a woman with nothing would carry. By the time I zipped it, it looked exactly like what Damian expected of me, and it weighed like everything he didn't.

He was in the living room when I came down, video calling Sienna on the big TV, his voice gone soft in a way I hadn't heard in years. He saw me and got up.

"Hold on. Open it. I want to see you're not walking out of here with something that isn't yours."

My heart jumped straight into my throat. Seventy pounds of gold sat six inches under his hand. For half a second I seriously considered swinging the suitcase at his head and making a run for it.

Steady, Mom. He's lazy. He'll never dig past the top layer.

Then he flipped the lid, poked at the wrinkled clothes on top with two fingers, and curled his lip.

"That's it? This pile of rags?" He dropped the lid. "You sure you don't want to look around? Don't say I never gave you the chance."

I gave him the saddest smile I had in me. "No need. Everything in this house is dirty."

His face went dark. "Get out. Get out, get out."

I rolled seventy pounds of stolen gold out the front door of the house I used to think I'd grow old in, and the night air outside had never smelled so good.

The cab dropped me at the nicest hotel downtown. I took a suite on a high floor, double locked the door, pushed the suitcase into the bedroom closet, and finally let my shoulders come down from around my ears.

Mom, you were amazing back there, Theo said. He's upstairs right now feeling very pleased with himself, probably counting money in his sleep. Wait until he opens that vent. I would pay to see his face.

"You basically did pay. With his money."

I ordered everything I'd spent years telling myself was too expensive. King crab, a steak, a chocolate cake the size of a hubcap. While I ate, I asked Theo the question I'd been holding since the bridge.

"Tell me about the last time. After I jumped."

He was quiet for a moment, and when he spoke again the cockiness was gone from his voice.

You died and he didn't shed one tear. He put out a statement saying you were mentally ill, that he'd spent years caring for you through your breakdowns. He cried on camera about it. The company's stock jumped off the sympathy. Sienna took the settlement money from your estate and bought herself a limited edition bag. And your ashes, Mom. They didn't even keep them. They scattered you off some county road and forgot you.

The crab leg snapped in my fist. I sat there breathing through my nose until the red receded from the edges of my vision.

"Son. I'm going to make this right for both of us."

I know you will. And Mom, get some sleep. Tomorrow at the courthouse there's going to be a show. Sienna will come to rub it in. Whatever she says, you do not touch her. That designer stuff she wears is all knockoffs, one good pull and the dye comes off on your hands, and then she'll find a way to sue us for it.

I laughed so hard I almost choked on cake. This kid's mouth was worse than mine.

We fell asleep with the city glowing outside the window, and for the first time in months I slept without dreaming, because for once the morning had something in it I actually wanted.