Chapter 6

I didn't expect him to confess publicly. But there it was, the next morning, every outlet: a video of Julian Sterling, gaunt, head down, reading from a script.

"Clara. I was wrong. All of this was my fault.

"I was unfaithful. I was cruel. I used every ugly tactic I had to protect my affair. I am not worthy of having been your husband and I am not worthy of your forgiveness.

"I know nothing I say matters now. But I want to see you. Once. I want to say I am sorry in person. I want to try to make any tiny part of this right. Please."

At the end of the clip his face was in his hands.

I had three words for him. See you in court.

Two weeks later I saw him again at the Southern District federal courthouse.

He had lost weight — too much weight. His eyes were bloodshot. When I walked in he stared at me like I was the only fixed point in the room.

Damian, counsel of record, leaned in as we sat down.

"Don't soften."

I didn't. I only had one thought in my head.

Put him in prison.

For my mother.

Vivienne didn't appear. She had been sectioned. After the forced abortion and the public exposure — without Julian buffering her — she had snapped. She was in a locked ward at Long Island Psychiatric.

I'd visited her. Once. The girl who had sauntered into my living room in my own silk slip was now unwashed, hollow-eyed, rocking on a bed and whispering Julian's name to no one.

But there was no pity left in me.

The trial was short. Every piece of evidence held. Julian did not hire a defense attorney. He did not argue. He kept his head down and pleaded guilty to every count.

The gavel fell.

Bigamy. Felony forgery of a government record.

Four years, federal custody.

His only request was a private word with me before they took him away.

I agreed. I had divorce papers for him to sign anyway.

When he saw the papers, something left his body.

He broke down, hands over his face, making wet gasping sounds in the empty room.

"Clara. I'm sorry. I lost you."

"I was wrong. I know I was wrong. How did we get here?"

I watched him cry and felt nothing. Not fury, not grief. A flat calm.

I pushed the pen across the table.

"If you mean it — sign."

"Once, I gave you everything I had. I trusted you completely. I never considered for one second that you would betray me."

"I don't love you anymore, Julian. And I don't want to hate you either. A clean break is the kindest ending either of us is getting."

He saw it in my face. It was over. It had been over for months.

His hand shook so badly he nearly dropped the pen. He signed.

He set the pen down. His voice was wrecked.

"Clara. You won't believe me. But I love you."

I didn't turn around.

I walked out of that courthouse. And out of the seven years he'd had me in.

Damian and I were married the following year.

He told me later that he'd been in love with me since the moot competition. That it had just taken him a decade to find his moment, because I'd had eyes for one man only and never noticed anyone else.

I wound my arms around his neck and grinned. "See? Persistence pays. Look who you got in the end."

The year after that, our daughter was born.

When she was one we took her camping in the Berkshires.

She pointed a tiny, sticky finger at a silhouette near the treeline.

"Mama. That man is crying."

I looked.

Julian. Out on parole. Standing twenty yards away in a coat that was too big for him, watching us — me, Damian, our daughter — with an expression I will not describe. He didn't come closer. His lips moved, shaping something he couldn't make himself say out loud. Then he turned and walked unsteadily away.

That night a very large wire transfer hit my account.

A message came with it.

Clara. In prison I kept dreaming about the basement in Bushwick. We were broke. I've never been happier than I was then. But I was an idiot — I let money and status blind me, and I lost you, and I don't get you back.

I saw you today. Your little girl is beautiful. If we'd had a kid, she'd probably have looked like that.

I'm rambling. Clara — losing you is a punishment I will serve every day of my life. So I'm going. Don't hate me anymore.

The next morning his body was found in a basement apartment in Bushwick.

The one where we'd lived.

Wind came through the window of my bedroom in upstate New York and stirred the pages of a book on the nightstand. My daughter breathed steadily against my shoulder. Damian's arm was heavy and warm across my waist.

All of it — the love, the hate, the obsession — turned to dust in the end.

If there is another life after this one, I hope Julian Sterling and I never meet.