Chapter 3 - The Cold Rain of Annapolis
The rain had intensified into a solid sheet of dark water by the time I walked through the sliding glass doors of the hotel lobby.
The valet looked at me with a polite, professional smile as I handed him my ticket. He didn't know that three floors above his head, my eleven-year marriage had just been declared dead on arrival.
"Rough night out there, ma'am," the young man said, pulling my black SUV up to the covered portico. "Bridge is backed up all the way to Kent Island."
"Thank you," I said, sliding a ten-dollar bill into his hand.
I climbed into the driver's seat, pulled the door shut, and sat in the dark for five long minutes. The dashboard clock read 8:42 PM.
In the back seat lay the second gift bag—the one containing two lower-box tickets to the Washington Commanders game against Dallas. I had called three different contacts at the medical center to find someone who could secure those seats because Marcus had talked about that game for two months.
I reached back, grabbed the paper bag, and threw it onto the passenger floorboard.
My phone began to vibrate in my purse.
Marcus calling.
I let it ring until it went to voicemail. Two seconds later, the screen lit up again.
Marcus calling.
I tapped the screen, set the phone on speaker, and placed it in the cup holder as I shifted the car into drive.
"Simone! Where are you?" His voice was frantic, accompanied by the background noise of a hotel room phone ringing or a television playing softly. "Are you in the parking lot? Please tell me you didn't leave."
"I'm on the road, Marcus," I said, keeping my eyes fixed on the red taillights of the shuttle bus ahead of me.
"Simone, you can't drive back to Baltimore in this weather! The wind on the Bay Bridge is fifty miles an hour! Pull over. Come back to the lobby. I told Brielle to leave. She’s packing her things right now. She’s taking an Uber back to D.C."
"You kicked your associate out in a storm so you could perform damage control with your wife?" I asked. My tone was conversational, almost academic. "That doesn't sound very gentlemanly of you, Marcus."
"Stop it! Stop talking like that!" he shouted, his composure slipping into panic. "I made a mistake! A stupid, reckless, meaningless mistake! She’s twenty-six years old, Simone! She doesn't mean anything to me!"
"That makes it worse, doesn't it?" I replied, turning onto the rain-slicked highway. "You threw eleven years away for someone who doesn't even mean anything to you. If you had fallen in love with her, at least I could respect the gravity of the choice. But you traded our life for room service and a blue shirt."
"Simone, please—"
"I am going home to clear my things out of the master bedroom," I said. "Do not come back to the house tonight. If I see your car in the driveway when I pull up, I will call the police and tell them you are harassing me."
"It's my house too!" he yelled.
"The deed is in my father's trust name, Marcus," I reminded him softly. "You signed the waiver when we restructured the mortgage three years ago so you could use the equity line for your failed investment firm. The house belongs to the trust. You are a guest."
The silence on the other end of the line was absolute. He had forgotten. Marcus always forgot the details that didn't immediately serve his vanity.
"I'm hanging up now," I said.
"Simone— wait! What about tomorrow? What about our dinner with your parents?"
I stared out at the dark, water-whipped highway ahead, the windshield wipers slapping back and forth in a frantic, rhythmic beat.
May you like
"Tell your mother I won't be coming," I said. "And tell your father he can keep the golf clubs I bought him for his birthday. I'll be needing the receipt."
I ended the call, turned off the phone, and drove into the blinding white light of the oncoming traffic.
