Chapter 3 - THE COAT ROOM
“What is this?” I demanded, holding the silver rosary out in my shaking hand. “James, this was with my mother when she died. You told me the hospital lost it.”
James slowly walked into the coat room. He reached behind him and clicked the heavy wooden door shut. The lock engaged with a sharp, terrifying snap.
“Give it to me, Emily.” His voice was devoid of the warm, Midwestern charm he had just used on stage. It was flat. Calculating.
Charlotte stepped slightly behind me, her fingers gripping the back of my blouse.
“No,” I said, stepping back until my shoulders hit the racks of expensive coats. “How do you have this? You told me you searched her hospital room. You watched me cry over this for weeks.”
James sighed, adjusting his cuffs with sickening calm.
“Your mother didn’t need it where she was going. And I needed a guarantee.”
“A guarantee for what?”
“That you would never leave me,” he said simply. He took another step forward. The dim lighting of the coat room cast long, sinister shadows across his face. “You were a mess when Rose died, Emily. You were fragile. You needed a savior to step in and handle the business, handle the grief, handle you. I kept the rosary as a little… insurance policy. A reminder of how easily you can be broken.”
My stomach violently revolted.
I had spent two decades sleeping next to a man who had stolen a dying woman’s beads just to relish the power of watching me mourn them.
“You’re a psychopath,” I whispered.
“I’m a pragmatist,” James corrected, his eyes narrowing. “And you, my sweet, naive wife, just ruined a three-million-dollar gala. Do you have any idea what you’ve done? The board members are panicking. The investors are threatening to pull out.”
“Good. They should know they’re investing in a fraud. You stole my mother’s designs. You moved your mistress into my office.”
James let out a harsh, barking laugh.
“Your office? Emily, you don’t have an office. You don’t have anything. I incorporated Whitmore Bridal under a holding company five years ago. My holding company. Your name isn’t on a single legal document of value. If you walk out that door and try to divorce me over a dress, I will leave you with absolutely nothing.”
He pointed a long finger at Charlotte, who flinched.
“And I’ll take custody of her. I have the best lawyers in Chicago on retainer. I’ll paint you as a hysterical, mentally unstable woman who couldn’t handle the pressure of the fashion industry. You’ll be lucky to see your daughter on alternate weekends.”
The sheer malice radiating from him was suffocating. But as I looked at the man I had loved for twenty years, I didn’t feel fragile anymore. The shock was burning away, replaced by a deep, protective rage.
“You underestimate me, James,” I said, slipping the rosary into my pocket.
“I know exactly what you are,” he sneered. He lunged forward, grabbing his cashmere coat off the floor.
As he snatched the heavy fabric, he pulled it too hard. The inner breast pocket caught on the edge of a metal coat hanger, ripping the silk lining with a loud tear.
Something fluttered out of the torn lining and landed on the toe of my shoe.
It was a faded, stiff piece of paper.
Before James could react, I bent down and snatched it.
It was an Amtrak train ticket.
I stared at the faded ink. It was a one-way ticket from Chicago to Springfield.
But it was the date stamped at the top that made the breath leave my lungs.
October 14, 2004.
The exact day my mother died.
“Why do you have a train ticket to Springfield from the day Mom died?” I asked, looking up at him. “You were at the hospital with me.”
For the first time all night, genuine panic flashed across James’s face.
He didn’t have a smooth answer prepared. He lunged at me, trying to snatch the ticket, but I shoved him back with both hands, using all the adrenaline coursing through my veins.
“Come on, Charlotte!” I yelled.
I unlocked the door, yanked it open, and pulled my daughter into the lobby. We ran toward the valet stand, leaving James standing in the coat room, staring after us with a look of pure, unadulterated hatred.
We jumped into a taxi. I locked the doors and told the driver to take us straight to our house in the suburbs.
Charlotte was crying silently in the backseat. I held her hand, staring at the train ticket under the passing streetlights.
Springfield was the state capital. It was where the state patent and trademark offices were located.
James hadn’t been holding my hand while my mother took her last breath. He had been on a train, securing the legal rights to her life’s work before her body was even cold.
But why sew the ticket into the lining of his coat? Why keep it hidden for twenty years?
Unless it wasn't just a ticket.
I flipped the stiff paper over.
May you like
Written on the back, in my mother’s unmistakable, looping handwriting, was a single sentence.
I know about the child, James.
