Chapter 30
The divorce finalized in early spring.
There was no dramatic courtroom speech. No thunderclap. No single moment where all wounds vanished. Jackson accepted a plea agreement in the assault case and faced consequences through the court. The fraud case continued separately, with restitution proceedings and restrictions that prevented him from contacting me or accessing my accounts.
Genesis was not charged for everything people suspected she had encouraged, but the investigation exposed enough to unravel her control. Her social circle shrank. Her relatives stopped pretending not to see. For a woman who had lived on appearances, truth became its own sentence.
I did not attend Jackson’s final hearing.
Instead, I went to my apartment.
The building stood on a quiet street in St. Paul, where early sunlight touched the brick like a blessing. In the courtyard, snowmelt dripped from bare branches. Someone had left a blue ceramic planter near the entrance, empty and waiting.
My key turned easily in the new lock.
Inside, everything was where I had left it, but I was not.
For a long time, I stood in the living room and listened.
No footsteps behind me.
No voice asking why the mail was on the table.
No accusation hiding inside an ordinary question.
Just the hum of the refrigerator, the distant rush of traffic, and my own breathing.
Lena arrived with cinnamon rolls and a toolbox.
“You brought pastries and a drill,” I said.
“I contain multitudes.”
We spent the day changing light fixtures, rearranging furniture, and taking down the framed print Jackson had always hated because he said it made the room look “too independent.” It was an abstract painting of a woman standing beneath a yellow sky.
I hung it directly across from the front door.
May you like
By late afternoon, Eli came by.
Lena opened the door and gave him a look that could have stripped paint.
