Vows Written In Poison

The Anniversary Gift

"Duck," Felicia hissed.

Claire slid down in the booth so fast her whiskey spilled.

"Is he coming in?" Claire whispered.

"He's on the phone. He looks upset."

"He should look upset. Where is his mistress? Did he leave her wet in the bed?"

"Claire."

"I'm sorry." Claire pressed her hands against her face. "I'm sorry, I don't know how to talk yet."

"You don't have to talk. You have to think. You said you have no money. What did you mean?"

Claire lowered her hands slowly. "Grace's treatment."

Felicia's mouth opened, then closed.

"Every month," Claire said, "the bill for my sister's hospital is fifty-two thousand dollars. Raymond pays it. He pays for the nurses, the imported medication, the specialist who flies in from Zurich. If I walk out of that marriage tonight, Grace is dead in six weeks."

"Claire."

"Don't say it. I know what you want to say."

"You have a doctorate that you never finished. You had three job offers before he made you drop out. You are not helpless, Claire."

"I know I'm not."

"So use it."

Claire looked out at the street. Raymond had gotten back in his car.

"Draft the papers, Felicia," she said again. "I'll get the money. I'll get all of it."

"How?"

"Doctor Anthony Mercer."

"Your old professor?"

"He's been asking me to come back for two years. I've been saying no because Raymond didn't like it."

"Then say yes."

"I will," Claire said. She stood up, wobbled once, and steadied herself on the back of the chair. "Tonight."

She walked out into the rain and let it wash the perfume off her.

Home, when she reached it, was too big and too quiet. The mansion sat on Beacon Hill, four floors of pale stone, and every hallway seemed longer than she remembered. She kicked off her heels at the door and climbed the stairs in her bare, ruined stockings.

In the bedroom, she pulled off her diamond earrings and laid them on the dresser, next to the small framed picture from their wedding day. She and Raymond had gone to the courthouse before the big ceremony, just the two of them, and taken a photograph with a bored clerk. In the picture, Claire's smile was so wide it looked painful. Raymond was crying.

She turned the picture face down.

She dialed a number she still knew by heart.

"Claire?" Anthony Mercer picked up on the second ring, and his voice was warm and sleepy at once. "Do you know what time it is?"

"I know, Professor. I'm sorry."

"Are you crying?"

"No. Yes. It doesn't matter. Professor, is that offer still open?"

There was a long silence.

"The research lead position at Halden Biotech," he said carefully.

"Yes."

"Claire, that seat has been empty for two years because I told them I would only give it to one person. Are you saying yes?"

"I'm saying yes."

"When can you start?"

"Tomorrow."

He whistled, low. "Tomorrow. Alright. Tomorrow. What has that man done to you?"

"Please don't ask me tonight."

"Then I won't." He paused. "Claire. I am glad you called. I have been waiting for this call for four years."

She wiped her face. "Thank you, Professor."

"One more thing," Anthony said. "The salary starts at three hundred and eighty thousand. Plus stock. Plus a signing package. I need you to hear that number, Claire, because I know why you stayed silent for so long. That will cover your sister and then some."

Claire's throat closed. She could not speak.

"Get some rest," he said gently. "I'll send a driver in the morning."

The line went dead.

She sat on the edge of the bed and did not cry. Crying was a thing she had done for four years and it had never once solved anything. Instead she opened the wardrobe and began to fold clothes into a suitcase. Silk blouses. Two pairs of jeans. A small leather box that held her mother's rosary.

She left the diamonds.

She left the wedding album.

She left the anniversary card he had written to her that morning, which said, "Four years down, forever to go. Yours entirely, R."

She was almost done when she heard the front door.

"Claire!" Raymond's voice, worried, loud. "Claire, baby, are you home?"

She shoved the suitcase under the bed. Her hands were shaking so badly she had to press them flat against her thighs.

Footsteps on the stairs.

The bedroom door swung open.

Raymond stood there with his coat unbuttoned and his tie loose and his hair still perfect. He looked at her with a face so full of love that if she had not seen what she had seen, she would have believed him.

"There you are." He crossed the room in three strides and pulled her into his arms. "Where did you go? I turned around and you were gone. I have been driving for two hours."

She let him hold her. She did not touch his back.

"I felt sick," she said. "The lights were too bright. I took a cab home."

"Baby, you should have told me."

"I know."

"Sit down." He tugged her to the bed and knelt in front of her. "Look at me. Are you feeling any better?"

"A little."

"I have something for you." From his coat he pulled a long velvet box. "Open it."

She did. Inside was a bracelet, gold, set with a single sapphire the color of a bruise.

"You already gave me a perfume," she said.

"The perfume is for the world. This is only for you." He fastened it around her wrist. His fingers were warm. She wondered if they had been on that woman's throat an hour ago.

Probably.

"Raymond," she said, very quietly.

"Yes, my love?"

"Do you love me?"

He looked up at her with tears in his eyes for the second time that night. Real tears. That was the part that broke something in her chest.

"Claire," he said, "I would set myself on fire for you."

She smiled. It was the same smile she had used in the ballroom.

"Then don't take a shower tonight," she said. "Come to bed as you are."

His face flickered, just for a second.

"I'm sticky from the champagne, baby. Let me..."

"No," she said, still smiling. "Come as you are. I want to smell my perfume on you."

He hesitated.

Then he laughed, uncertain, and stood up. "Alright. Alright, whatever you want. Give me one minute in the bathroom, I promise, only one."

He shut the door behind him.

Claire heard the shower switch on immediately.

Her phone lit up on the nightstand.

She turned it over.

The grey circle account had sent one final message for the night.

"Ask him where the anklet went. The little silver snake. It's in his left coat pocket."