Chapter 2 - The Bracelet Wasn’t Mine
Daniel called eleven times before I reached Naomi’s apartment.
I answered none.
Naomi opened the door in pajamas.
She looked at my suitcase.
Then at my face.
“You did it.”
I nodded.
She pulled me inside.
Only after I sat on her sofa did my hands begin trembling.
Naomi took my phone before I could change my mind.
“I’m turning this off.”
“Wait.”
Another message appeared.
DANIEL:
Where did you get this?
Then:
DANIEL:
Please tell me where you got the bracelet.
Interesting.
Not:
I’m sorry.
Not:
I can explain.
Where did you get it?
I typed one answer.
From Camille.
Then switched the phone off myself.
The bracelet had arrived three days earlier.
Same cream-colored box Daniel had used when he bought it.
Camille Rhodes mailed it directly to my office.
I knew her name.
Daniel had known Camille since college.
They had dated briefly at twenty-two, then remained friends.
She married someone else.
Moved to Chicago.
Disappeared from our daily lives.
Then her marriage collapsed the previous year and she returned to New York.
Daniel told me she was having a hard time.
“She doesn’t really have anyone here.”
So he helped.
Dinner.
Moving boxes.
Late-night calls.
At first, I did not mind.
Then the timing changed.
Camille started needing Daniel on nights I needed him too.
And somehow I always became the one expected to understand.
Inside the box Camille sent was the bracelet.
Thin platinum.
Small diamond clasp.
On the inside:
START AGAIN — D.
Beneath it was Daniel’s card.
You deserve something beautiful after everything you survived.
I had read those words five times.
Not because gifts automatically meant affairs.
Because four months earlier, after my biopsy appointment, Daniel had forgotten our dinner and told me:
“You know I’m terrible at emotional gifts.”
Apparently he wasn’t.
Not with Camille.
Naomi sat beside me.
“Did Camille say why she sent it?”
I nodded.
Her note had been short.
Elena,
I should have returned this months ago.
I told myself Daniel was only helping me because I was falling apart.
Then I realized he was using your strength as permission to give me what belonged in his marriage.
There are things he told me you deserve to know.
I’m sorry I waited.
—Camille
Naomi looked toward my switched-off phone.
“What things?”
I stared at the white medical envelope sticking out of my handbag.
“The day of my diagnosis.”
May you like
Because the bracelet was not the real reason I left.
The real reason was the night Daniel decided another woman’s pain mattered more than mine.
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