Chapter 5
The sedan stayed locked. I stood with my hand on the passenger door handle and felt nothing give. Rain hammered the roof and ran off the black paint in sheets. Mark stood two feet behind me with the fob in his fist. Water beaded on his suit sleeves and dripped from his cuffs.
He didn't say anything right then. He just watched my hand. My suitcase was at my feet, its wheels half in a puddle, the handle still extended where I'd pulled it. My other hand was on my belly. The beads on my gown were cold against my skin and the wet sheer stuck to my legs.
I tried the handle again. The lock thunked. The lights didn't flash. I knew he hadn't pressed anything. He was letting the car say no for him.
"Mark, unlock it," I said.
He shook his head once. Rain ran down his face. "You're not driving like this. You're soaked. You're barefoot."
I wasn't asking to drive. I was asking to get in and sit and breathe somewhere that wasn't the steps. But I didn't explain that. Explaining would have kept me standing there.
I looked down at the suitcase. It was heavy. I'd packed it that afternoon while the catering staff carried champagne through the hallway downstairs. Two dresses, the prenatal vitamins from the bathroom counter, the cash from my desk drawer, my phone charger, the soft sneakers I couldn't find so I'd left barefoot. The weight had felt like proof on the stairs. Now it felt like an anchor.
I let go of the handle.
My fingers slipped on the wet plastic and then it was just standing there on its own. I didn't push it over. I didn't lay it down. I just released it. The rain hit the top and darkened the fabric between the seams. For a second I stared at it and waited to feel the panic of leaving it, but what I felt was lighter.
Mark looked at the suitcase, then at me.
"Leave it," I said. "Keep it if you want."
I stepped past the sedan. The pavement burned cold under my feet. Every step sent a sharp chill up through my arches. The driveway was longer than it looked from the door, a smooth black cut between low landscape lights that were now blurred halos in the rain. At the end, the estate gates stood closed, but the pedestrian gate beside them was a narrow iron door with a sidewalk beyond it that led to the county road.
I didn't look back to see if he'd follow the suitcase or me. I heard the rain and my own breathing and the faint slap of my feet on the wet asphalt.
Behind me, Mark said my name. "Sofia."
I kept walking. My gown clung and dragged and I had to hitch it with one hand to keep from stepping on the hem. Water ran down my calves. My belly tightened the way it did when I was cold or had been standing too long, a hard band across the middle that eased when I exhaled slow.
I heard his shoes on the driveway. He hadn't stayed with the car.
He caught up at the midpoint, not touching me, just falling into step on my left. He'd left the fob in his pocket. He'd left the suitcase where I'd left it, standing alone in the rain behind the sedan. I could see its shape if I turned, a black rectangle getting smaller, but I didn't turn.
"You're going to walk to the road barefoot in the rain?" he said. His voice was lower now, trying to sound reasonable. "It's forty-eight degrees out here."
I nodded without looking at him. The gate lights got closer. The rain hit the back of my neck and ran down inside the gown.
"Where are you going to go?" he asked. "You have no car. No shoes."
I kept my hand on my belly. The sidewalk at the end of the drive was coming into view, a concrete strip with a puddle at the curb where the road drain was clogged with wet leaves.
He moved a little ahead, as if he could block the pedestrian gate by standing in front of it. He didn't grab me. He just put his body there and looked at me, wet hair pasted to his forehead, suit ruined, breathing hard like he wasn't sure whether to be angry or scared.
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I stopped a foot from him. The gate was right there, iron bars, rain blowing through it. Beyond it, the road was dark and empty and wet, and the yellow line glowed under the streetlight.
I wasn't going back for the suitcase. I wasn't going back to the car. I was going through that gate on foot, and he was going to have to decide to follow me that way or stand and watch the thing I'd chosen to leave behind get soaked in his driveway.
