I clutched the phone to my chest and nodded to no one but myself. Three more days. That was all I had to survive.
Hours later, Scott came back. He didn’t even glance at the candle burning for our child. Of course he didn’t. He just looked at me with that fake, exhausted smile, and said, “I’m sorry, baby. I overreacted earlier. Jasmine wants a banquet tomorrow. You’ll handle it, right?”
I laughed but it came out cracked and raw. “Tomorrow? That’s impossible.”
His smile vanished. “I’m not asking if you can do it. I’m telling you to do it.”
Jasmine appeared behind him, wrapping her frail arms around his waist. “Scott, it’s okay… we can do it next week—”
“No. It has to be now,” Scott said. “Everyone must know you’re alive. They won’t dare touch you again.” His eyes cut to me. “Nadine will handle it.”
And that was that. They left me there — like a servant — to make call after call, pulling favors, arranging everything for the woman who’d ordered me dead.
I didn’t sleep that night. I didn’t dare. I worked until my fingers were raw, the candle at my father’s altar burning down to a stub.
Hours before dawn, I passed their bedroom. The door was ajar and the soft sound of moaning spilled into the hallway.
I stood there for a moment. I didn’t cry. There were no tears left for them.
I went to my room, pulled out the wedding gown I never wore. The ring he gave me and the copy of their marriage certificate. I dropped them in a box, along with a note about the baby he’d never cared to meet.
I scheduled the delivery for our wedding anniversary, no, their wedding anniversary — the same day I’d disappear forever.
When I finally drifted off, I barely heard Scott come in. He went straight for the vase my father made before he died — the last piece I had left.
“What are you doing?”
“I’ll have this. Jasmine wants it.”
“No,” I whispered. “Please, Scott, not that. That’s all I have left of my father. You know that! Why are you giving it to Jasmine?”
He didn’t even look at me. “Because she said she wants it and she'll give it to the doctor who had operated on her as a thank you because she was great now. It’s just a vase, Nadine. You have plenty.”
When I reached for it, he shoved me aside. I hit the floor, biting back a cry.
He never even looked back.
--
The day of the banquet was almost beautiful, if you ignored the fact that I was nothing more than their well-dressed maid.