Chapter 5 - Unpacking the Past
The next morning, the house smelled of fresh coffee and bleach.
I spent the early hours walking through every room with contractor-grade trash bags, clearing out every trace of him. His designer suits left in the master closet, his expensive cologne bottles on the bathroom vanity, his framed degrees on the home office wall—into the bags they went, ready to be dumped on the curb or shipped to the cheap motel downtown where he had checked in the night before.
My phone buzzed continuously on the kitchen island. Texts from Melissa, threatening legal action for defamation; frantic voice notes from Daniel’s mother asking what on earth I had done to her “sweet boy”; emails from HR confirming that Daniel Vance’s employment contract had been terminated with prejudice.
I blocked them all. One by one. Click. Click. Click.
It felt remarkably light.
At 10:00 AM, my lawyer—a sharp, formidable woman named Sarah Vance-no-relation—called to confirm that the preliminary asset freeze on our joint accounts had gone through without a hitch.
“You moved fast, Elena,” Sarah noted with an approving hum over the line. “Most people freeze up when they find out.”
“I’ve always been good at architecture,” I replied, looking out the kitchen window at the autumn garden where the chrysanthemums were finally coming into full bloom. “You can’t build a stable foundation on rotten timber. You have to tear it down to the studs.”
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“What’s your next move?”
“Designing something new,” I said.
