Chapter 13 - Celeste's Marriage
Celeste filed for divorce in December.
She did not call me to celebrate.
She called because she needed a reference.
"A reference?"
"For a job."
I nearly dropped the phone.
"You want me to recommend you?"
"No. I want you to tell the truth about working with me on the Faraday launch."
I remembered the project.
Celeste had run communications.
She'd been excellent.
Annoyingly excellent.
"You understand I don't like you," I said.
"Deeply."
"And I don't trust you."
"Fair."
"But you were good at that job."
"That's all I'm asking."
So I gave the reference.
Not because we became friends.
We didn't.
Not because I forgave the porch.
I hadn't.
I did it because the truth didn't have to become convenient just because Adrian had abused it.
Celeste got the job.
Two weeks later, she asked to meet for lunch.
"If this is another marital surprise, I'm leaving."
"No surprises."
She slid a small velvet box across the table.
I stared at it.
"What is that?"
"The earrings."
The diamond earrings from my jewelry box.
The ones she'd worn Halloween night.
I looked at her.
"Adrian gave them to you."
"He said they belonged to his mother."
I almost laughed.
Of course he did.
"They were my grandmother's."
Celeste closed her eyes.
"Naturally."
"How long have you had them?"
"Two months."
"And you're returning them now?"
She looked embarrassed.
"I found the appraisal in his desk when I was collecting documents for the divorce. Your name was on it."
I opened the box.
The earrings looked small and ordinary after everything.
"Thank you."
She nodded.
We ate in silence for a while.
Then she said, "I was awful to you."
"Yes."
"I'm not asking you to say I wasn't."
"Good."
"I think I needed you to be stupid so I could feel less stupid."
I looked at her.
That was honest enough to hurt.
"I needed you to be a villain," I said.
"Was I?"
"Sometimes."
She smiled faintly.
"Fair."
"Were you?"
"What?"
"A villain."
I thought about it.
"Sometimes."
She laughed.
The waiter brought the check.
Celeste reached for it.
I reached too.
Our hands stopped.
Then we both started laughing harder than the moment deserved.
When we left the restaurant, she went east and I went west.
No hug.
No promise to keep in touch.
Some relationships do not need redemption.
They only need to stop doing damage.
That night, Elise called.
"The preservation sale closed."
"How do you feel?"
"Terrible. Relieved. Hungry."
"Sounds healthy."
"Come tomorrow. Martin is making chili."
I went.
Alder House had moving boxes in every room.
Elise had decided to keep only photographs, two lamps, her mother's recipe box, and one green velvet chair from the library.
"That's it?" I asked.
"I spent five years thinking memory lived in furniture. Turns out furniture is mostly heavy."
Martin carried a box past us.
"She says that now. Ask her about the piano."
Elise pointed at him.
"Traitor."
I laughed.
Then I noticed a velvet ring box on the kitchen counter.
The real diamond.
My chest tightened.
"What are you doing with it?"
Elise picked up the box.
"I decided."
"And?"
She placed it in my hand.
"You take it."
I pulled back.
"No."
"I'm not giving it to you."
"That's usually what take it means."
"Take it to the auction house."
I stared at her.
She smiled.
"My mother spent half her life funding a shelter for women leaving bad marriages. Let's let the ring do something useful for once."
I looked down at the diamond that had been a promise, a theft, a lie, and a joke on a porch.
Then I closed my fingers around the box.
"Okay."
Elise nodded.
"Okay."
May you like
For once, the ring was going somewhere because a woman had decided where.
