Chapter 8%
The sea was dead quiet again. Just the sound of the waves brushing against the side of the yacht, and somewhere inside, Elizabeth’s laughter echoing off the glass. Probably already a bottle and a half in.
I stared down at my phone. That damn message still sitting there, like it had weight. Her signature. Doris’s. Full and steady. No hesitation in the strokes.
“She’ll crawl back,” I muttered, mostly to myself. “Just wait.”
But even I heard it–the pause in my voice. That space where doubt slips in like a draft.
I took another sip of whiskey. Sat down on one of the padded deck chairs. Legs stretched out. Tried to brush it off, shake it loose. I’d been through worse. Deals gone south, raids, bankruptcies… Doris leaving? That’s not how it ends. That’s not the script.
And yet-
I remember it. Clear as hell.
We were nobodies. Just two kids who thought love was enough. No money. No backup plan. She worked nights cleaning clinics, days folding clothes at a laundromat, weekends handing out samples at some grocery chain that doesn’t even exist anymore. Pregnant with Lester, stomach out to here, still working like she owed the world something.”
And me? I was just the idiot with the idea. The dream. The plan. But it was her–Doris–that kept the roof over our heads while I pitched to ghosts.
You think people get rich because they’re smart? Nah. They get rich because someone else breaks their back to keep the lights on while they fail five hundred times.
The first investor I ever landed was because I wore a suit Doris ironed at 3 a.m. before her shift started. We made it because she never Said no, even when I deserved it.
I remember the early years like film reels. Cheap takeout on the floor. Doris humming to herself, swollen feet up on a milk crate, always talking softly to Lester in her belly like he was already here.
And then…
That one fight.10
Lester was six. Sick as hell. Some kind of fever that wouldn’t break. Couldn’t breathe right. I remember walking into the kitchen that night -bags packed, flight in two hours. Elizabeth already waiting in the car. The trip was important, big Chinese investor, millions on the line.
Doris stood by the sink, dish towel in her hands, tears in her eyes.
“I’m scared, Edmund!” she said. “He’s burning up. He’s not responding.”
And what did I do?W
I told her to bring him to the hospital.
Didn’t even hold the kid. Didn’t even stay the night. Just walked out. Before I left, she looked me dead in the eye–tears still falling–and said, “If you don’t change, 24 years from now, on my 48th birthday, I will finally leave you. I’ll divorce you. I swear to God, Edmund.”
I laughed. Shrugged. Told her she was being dramatic.
Thirty years. She waited thirty damn years.
And now here we are. Now the divorce papers are real. And Doris isn’t crying in the kitchen this time.>>
Inside, Elizabeth was yelling again. I didn’t even need to look to know she was bored.”
“Edmund! Come on, we’re going jet–skiing. Loisa’s already dressed. Lester’s getting the twins into the boat.”
Lyle and Nash–those twins are loud as hell, pure chaos bottled up in swim trunks. I hear them shouting from the back deck already, taunting each other like wild animals.
“Let’s bring this rag to Grandma Doris!” one of them screeched, holding up some filthy towel like it was treasure.!
The other laughed. “Yeah, maybe she can use it to mop the floor!”
They were both laughing now, full–bellied and cruel in that way kids are when no one tells them better.}
For a second–I don’t know what came over me–I wanted to tell them to shut it. To keep Doris’s name out of their mouths.
But I didn’t.”
I didn’t say a damn thing. Then the phone rang.”
I checked the screen. Felix. My lawyer. Friend, technically. Useful,
I answered. “Talk fast.”
Felix chuckied. “So… she filed. For real this time. Full divorce petition. Signature’s there. She’s not bluffing, Ed.”
I didn’t say anything for a second. Just felt the glass sweat against my palm.
“Okay,” I finally said. “Okay.”
Felix waited. “You alright?”
“She’ll crawl back,” I said, letting the words hang there like a cigar smoke trail. “She always crawls back. Just wait.”
But there was something in my voice. I heard it.
So did Felix. He didn’t argue. He just said, “Sure. Talk soon.”
(hung up.”
apter
3:13 PM
We’d just come back from the damn jet–skis, my shirt half open, hair slicked from the salt, and Elizabeth was already nagging for a photo. “Smile like you don’t own half the marina,” she said, flipping her curls like we were still in our thirties.
So I grinned, threw my arm around her waist, tilted my shades down just a little, and snap. Perfect shot. Posted it with some trashy caption like “Legacy in motion. Fifty and free.” Hashtagged it too–yeah, I know how the damn internet works. Let the world chew on that. I knew Doris would see it. She’s the kind that pretends she doesn’t watch, but she watches. Obsessively. Like a mad dog in love, pacing behind a fence. She’s bluffing. She always was. That woman wouldn’t last two weeks without hearing my voice. Without the name. Without the money. And that divorce? Please. I haven’t signed anything. That paper’s not worth the ink until my hand touches it.
So yeah–I was laughing again. Big laugh. Chest–deep. Like the kind I used to have after a closed deal and a bottle of imported scotch. Felt good. Felt right.
Then Lester came stumbling over with his ridiculous swim trunks and a phone in his hand, like a kid running in with a secret he wasn’t supposed to see.
“Dad! Dad, look at this! Look what’s on the news. Just dropped.”
He shoved his phone at me like I was his secretary.
I grabbed it, about to scold him for interrupting my peace, but then- “Rossini Reunites with Long–Lost Daughter. Bloodline Restored. Face Unblurred Press Conference Imminent.”
23
