Chapter 2 - The Life Outside His Gates
Sofia did not ask whether I was certain.
That was the first thing I loved her for the next morning.
She handed me coffee, placed a clean towel on the couch, and said, “You can stay as long as you need.”
“I can pay.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want—”
“Elena. Drink the coffee.”
Sofia had known me before Rafael.
Before the drivers, the gates, and the men who stepped out of elevators before allowing me inside.
She remembered the twenty-three-year-old who carried fabric samples in a grocery bag and believed good work would eventually speak loudly enough to be heard.
At thirty-four, I was less sure.
My phone vibrated against the counter.
Rafael again.
Sofia looked at it.
“Do you want him to know you’re here?”
“No.”
“Then we start there.”
She was an employment lawyer, not a divorce attorney, and made that distinction immediately. By noon, she had arranged an appointment with a colleague named Miriam Chen.
Before we left, I bought a new phone.
It felt ridiculous to feel relieved by something that fit in my palm.
But the old one belonged to a family account managed by Rafael’s office. I no longer knew which conveniences had become windows into my life.
At Miriam’s office, I sat beneath a painting of an empty beach.
She asked what I wanted.
“A divorce.”
“Anything else?”
I swallowed.
“To make a decision without someone calling my husband first.”
Miriam put down her pen.
“Then we’ll be careful about who gets information and who speaks for you.”
She did not promise that everything would be simple.
I trusted her more because of it.
The marriage agreement needed review. Our financial lives were tangled. My textile restoration business had existed before the wedding, but Rafael’s family investment company had later financed a larger studio.
I had believed the arrangement made us partners.
Now I could not remember how much of it I had actually read.
“Bring me the documents you already have,” Miriam said. “Don’t go back alone to retrieve anything.”
That afternoon, Rafael sent flowers.
Not to Sofia’s apartment.
To my studio.
Three enormous arrangements arrived in crystal vases, followed by a handwritten card.
Come home. We can survive a mistake.
I read the word twice.
Mistake.
A missed turn was a mistake.
Seven months required planning.
I asked the receptionist to donate the flowers and keep the vases for supplies.
Then I called my staff.
There were four of us: me, my assistant Tessa, an elderly embroiderer named Mrs. Park, and a part-time accountant.
“I’m separating from Rafael,” I told them. “My personal situation may cause disruptions. I’ll tell you what affects your work.”
Tessa’s face tightened.
“Are you safe?”
“Yes.”
“Then we’ll handle the rest.”
I wanted desperately to believe her.
Three days after leaving, I recorded a video.
Not for the internet.
For myself.
Sofia had suggested it after I admitted I was already remembering the confrontation differently.
Perhaps I had been too harsh.
Perhaps I should have stayed until morning.
Perhaps the frightened look on Rafael’s face meant more than the seven months before it.
“Record what happened while you still know,” Sofia said. “You don’t have to show anyone.”
So I sat against her kitchen wall and told the truth.
I described Lucia’s shirt.
The wineglass.
Rafael’s hand around my wrist.
I said the house had been the only place I believed his enemies could not reach me.
Then I said, “I did not leave because I stopped loving him. I left because loving him no longer felt safe.”
I stopped recording.
For the first time, I cried.
Not elegantly.
Not the quiet tears of women in expensive perfume advertisements.
I cried until my ribs hurt and Sofia sat beside me on the floor because getting up seemed unnecessary.
The next morning, an envelope arrived at my studio.
There was no flower arrangement this time.
Inside was a notice from De Luca Holdings announcing an immediate review of my company’s financing.
A scheduled payment had been suspended.
Our landlord had been contacted.
At the bottom of the letter was a signature I recognized.
Matteo De Luca.
Rafael’s cousin.
The man who managed the family’s financial affairs.
I called Rafael once.
He answered before the second ring.
“Elena.”
“Did you authorize this?”
“What?”
I read the first paragraph.
Silence.
Then: “I’ll speak to Matteo.”
“No. Answer me.”
“I didn’t tell him to do it.”
“Then tell him to stop.”
“I will. But you need to understand that leaving creates complications.”
I stood in the studio surrounded by half-restored curtains and unpaid invoices.
For nine years, I had heard that sentence in different forms.
Security creates complications.
Business creates complications.
Power creates complications.
This time, I heard what it meant.
My freedom was becoming expensive.
May you like
“Then I’ll learn to handle them,” I said.
And I ended the call.
