Chapter 2
1133 Words
The next morning felt like someone had pressed pause on everything and just forgot to come back and press play.
Mara lay still for a long moment, staring up at the ceiling. Then she remembered yesterday, not all at once. It came back in pieces. The papers, Frank’s voice, telling her to sign like it was nothing more than a receipt she needed to get out of the way.
She turned her head. Frank’s side of the bed was empty. He sure didn't come back last night.
Her chest tightened, she pulled the sheet a little closer, and let her eyes wander around the room.
Maybe she had overreacted.
The thought crept in before she could stop it. Frank had been distant before. He always pulled away when work piled up, and Vivian had always been complicated. Maybe bringing her up had been a mistake, and asking for a divorce had been a reckless decision.
She pressed her fingers to her temple, trying to push out the dull ache forming there. Maybe she should talk to him. Just talk and clear the air, apologize if she had to, and fix it before it went too far.
She got out of bed.
“Okay,” she said quietly to the empty room.
**********
She shouldn’t have gone to his office.
She knew that before she even got in the elevator, but she had already made that decision. She had the papers, and she had never been the kind of person who left things unfinished. Frank had always said that was the thing about her that drove him the craziest. She had never once apologized for it.
The building looked the same as it always did. Staff were moving around, phones were ringing, and everything was continuing as if nothing had happened.
She didn’t stop at the front desk… she didn’t need to, because she had walked these halls too many times to announce herself.
She just went up and walked in, then stopped.
Vivian was there, sitting in Frank’s chair like she had been in it a hundred times before. One leg crossed over the other, back straight, completely at ease. Frank was kneeling close to her, one hand on her knee, and his head bent slightly toward hers, in low voices. Whatever they were talking about was clearly not meant for the door.
Vivian looked up first.
“Oh.” She smiled, light and easy. “You’re here.”
Frank turned. He stood up slowly. “Mara, didn’t know you were coming in.”
“I came with the papers,” Mara said simply.
The silence stretched to a suffocating length.
Vivian shifted in the chair, crossing her legs the other way. “Frank was just helping me, don’t mind me.” She gestured at her knee. “I walked straight into the edge of the desk earlier, very graceful, I know, and he was just checking… it wasn’t too bad.” She tilted her head at Mara with something that almost passed for warmth. “You know how clumsy I am.”
Mara looked at her knee. It looked completely fine, then she looked at Frank.
He said nothing. Didn’t confirm it or add to it. Just let the explanation hang in the air between them and left it right there.
She nodded once. “I just need your signature first.” She held up the folder. “Then I’ll be out of your way.”
Frank exhaled through his nose. “You’re still going through with this.”
“I was always going through with this. I just hadn’t signed yet.”
“Mara—”
“Frank.” Her voice was patient… the tone she used when she had already run through the argument in her head too many times for it to matter anymore.
Vivian stood slowly, smoothing her dress down with both hands. She had a way of making even the smallest movements look like a performance.
“I’ll give you two a moment,” she said pleasantly.
She walked past Mara toward the door, slowing just slightly as she passed her, intentionally and close enough that Mara caught the smell of her perfume. Pretty expensive.
“Don’t take it too personally, okay?” Vivian said softly.
Then she stepped out, and the door clicked shut.
The office felt different immediately, more honest somehow.
Frank moved away from the desk and went to stand by the window. He placed his hands in his pockets, staring out at nothing… he always did that when he didn’t know what to do with his face.
“It's not what you think it is, Mara.”
“Oh yeah?” Mara’s tone broke down. “But it looks like what I think it is, Frank. You were working.”
“You’re still being emotional, maybe you should think about the decision you're about to make,” he said, still not looking at her.
Mara almost laughed.
“I’ve been thinking about this for months, Frank.”
“That’s not the same as thinking clearly.”
“Okay.” She walked to the desk and put the folder down in front of him. Opened it to the right page. Set the pen beside it. “Then sign it, and we’ll see.”
He turned from the window and looked at her properly for the first time since she walked in.
“You don’t even have a plan… from your clothes to what you eat, that’s all on me… you’d be nothing without me,” he said.
His words hit her like a punch to the gut, even though she had expected them. Ever since she had stopped working as a lead director because he asked her to, claiming he could provide everything she would ever want. This statement still shattered her without mercy.
“I don’t need a plan to stay away from you.”
Something changed in his expression, as if he had finally grasped that she truly meant it.
He stepped forward, picked up the pen, and pulled the folder toward him. He located the correct lines and signed… first one page, then the next, just as he always did with contracts and agreements.
When he finished, he pushed the folder back across the desk.
Mara picked it up, found her page, signed her name, and then set the pen down on the desk with a loud thud.
The sound echoed through the quiet room. She picked up her bag and looked at him one last time. He was still standing there, his hands in his pockets.
“Thank you,” she said.
She wasn’t entirely sure what for. For signing or for not making it worse than it needed to be
She turned and walked out.
He didn’t stop her.
- Writer
