Chapter 3

The cars of the company's top executives filled the lot outside the Riverside Hotel.

A family portrait stood at the entrance to the banquet hall. In it, Eric held a child, and Monica leaned against him in a red gown.

The wedding bands on their ring fingers caught the light with the same gold sheen.

Below the photo ran a line: Humphrey James's First Birthday, and the Third Wedding Anniversary of His Parents.

Three years.

Counted from the very day my mother was buried.

I stared at Eric's smiling face, and all at once I thought back over every night of these three years.

He had never once stayed out overnight. He came home for every holiday, right on schedule.

On the anniversary of my mother's death, every year, he went with me to the cemetery, wiped down her headstone, and told me gently to let the past go.

So it turned out he did have another home.

He had simply split his time between the two sides precisely enough, and made everyone who knew help him keep the lie whole.

Gillian came out of the banquet hall. She wore a gown the same color as Monica's, with a "godmother" corsage pinned to her chest.

The moment she saw me, the smile froze on her face.

Her first instinct wasn't to explain. It was to reach back and pull the door shut.

I asked her how long she had known.

Gillian's eyes went red, and after a long time she told me that from beginning to end, she had known all of it.

She said that years ago, when the bracelet nearly ended my marriage, Eric had been afraid I wouldn't survive the shock of Monica's pregnancy, so he'd had everyone keep it from me.

She'd thought it was wrong too, once.

But then Eric promoted her to administrative director, and Monica's child called her godmother at every turn. More than she feared me learning the truth, she feared losing everything she had now.

"Nina, Eric never once thought about divorcing you."

"Monica doesn't want shares, doesn't want a title. She only wanted to give the James family a child. You're still Mrs. James. No one can step over you."

I looked at the godmother corsage on her chest and felt only how absurd it all was.

Monica didn't want a title, and yet she wore the wedding band melted down from my mother's bracelet, celebrating her wedding anniversary in front of the whole company.

She wasn't taking my place. She was only making everyone around me admit that she was Eric's real wife.

Seeing that I said nothing, Gillian reached out to take my arm.

She told me my mother-in-law and the company executives were all inside, that today was the child's first birthday, and that if I just went home first, she and Eric would give me an explanation.

I stepped away from her hand, called my lawyer, declared the authorization on the old house void, and started sorting through the property and investment dealings between Eric and me.

Then I had her submit a written request on my behalf as a shareholder, to audit the expenses booked over these three years under the name of "business spending."

Inside the banquet hall, my mother-in-law's voice came through the speakers.

Holding the child, she announced with a smile that the James family had one more happy occasion to celebrate.

The doors of the banquet hall opened again. A staff member carried in a red tray, and on it sat the pair of wedding bands melted down from my mother's bracelet.

In front of every guest, my mother-in-law slid the woman's ring onto Monica's finger.

"This is the James family's heirloom gold."

"Today, I formally hand it to the James family's true daughter-in-law."

Applause poured out through the gap in the doors.

My husband stood at Monica's side and said nothing.

Monica thanked her with red-rimmed eyes, saying she had waited three years and had finally earned her mother-in-law's blessing.

Then my mother-in-law picked up the child's gold protection charm and hung it around Humphrey's neck with her own hands.

On the back of the charm, my mother's engraving was still there. A single word: Nina.

That was my name.

So the gold bracelet my mother had left me hadn't only become Monica's wedding band. What was left of the gold had become her child's protection charm too.

I had worshipped at my mother's grave for three years wearing a fake bracelet.

They had taken the real keepsake, held a wedding, had a child, and then called it the James family heirloom gold.

I pushed past Gillian where she stood blocking me and walked into the banquet hall.

Eric saw me, and the smile vanished from his face.

My mother-in-law's arms tightened around the child on instinct, and she demanded sharply to know who had let me in.

I didn't answer.

I only walked up onto the stage and set the fake bracelet, its copper core showing through, down beside the wedding bands.

Two shades of gold, completely different under the lights.

I picked up the microphone and looked out over the room full of guests.

"Since today is a happy day for the James family, then I have a gift for the newlyweds too."

"Three years of accounts. We'll settle them here, one by one, in front of everyone."

I set the divorce papers down in front of Eric.

But he didn't look at the papers. He only stared at my other hand, the one that was empty.

A few seconds later, the color drained completely from Eric's face.