Emma Porter touched a finger to her wire-rim glasses and cast a furtive glance at the freesias atop the file cabinet, gathered fresh from her garden that morning. The vase wobbled, but remained upright, and Emma quickly lowered her gaze to the keyboard of her computer. Bending forward, she let her long hair fall like a shield on either side of her face, determined to avoid the same, tedious conversation she’d had every day for the past six weeks.
“Not that Richard was a good man,” her assistant continued, scooping up another armload of files. “I’d’ve scratched his eyes out if he’d run out on me like that. No eyes, no cameras, no sweet young things to drool over.” Clang! Another drawer took the brunt of Rita’s disapproval.
“Please, Rita—the freesias.”
“I’m sorry, Emma.” Rita’s voice trembled with outrage. “But when I think of Richard dumping you like that, after fifteen years—”
“We weren’t married,” Emma pointed out.
“But—”
“We lived in separate houses.”
“Still—”
“We were two independent adults.”
“You were a couple!” Rita marched back to stand before Emma’s desk. “For fifteen years you did everything together. You even planned your big trip together. Then he ... he ...” Tears welled in Rita’s eyes.
Without looking away from the computer screen, Emma reached for the half-empty box of Kleenex on the windowsill behind her and handed it to Rita, silently reminding herself to buy a fresh box on her way home. It seemed as though half the women in Boston had stopped by to commiserate since the wedding and each one had ended up in tears.
“Oh, Emma,” Rita managed, trying to stem the flow before it ruined her mascara, “how can you be so brave?”
Burying her face in a handful of tissues, Rita retreated to her own desk, just outside Emma’s office. When the other women in the department began to cluster around, Emma got up and closed the door firmly. The past six weeks had taught her that a firmly closed door was the only way to keep her sympathetic underlings at bay.
Sighing, Emma reached out to the vase on the file cabinet, plucked a fragrant blossom, and held it to her nose, wishing that her co-workers would mind their own business. It wasn’t as though she and Richard were facing a messy divorce. She’d had no more desire than he to be tied down by marriage vows. Theirs had been a practical relationship, separate but equal, and it had outlasted most conventional marriages. Richard had his town house in Newton; she, her Cape Cod cottage in Cambridge. He’d pursued his career in photography and she’d pursued hers in computer science. They’d been a couple for fifteen years and now they weren’t. That was all there was to it.
The light on her telephone began to blink, and Emma glanced at her watch. Time for Mother’s morning pep talk, she thought wryly. Returning to her desk, she tossed the freesia blossom into the wastebasket and reached for the phone.
“Hello, Mother.” Emma swiveled her chair to face the windows, where the bleak Boston skyline was etched against a lowering April sky.
“Hi, Emma. Heard from that rat yet?”
Emma’s gaze traveled up along the tangled strands of ivy framing the window. She reached for her pair of scissors. “No, Mother, I haven’t heard from Richard, and I don’t expect to.” Pinching the phone between her neck and shoulder, Emma stood and began pruning the tendrils of ivy. “I’m sure Richard is much too busy with his new life—”
Her mother snorted. “His new wife, you mean. I told you a thousand times to marry that rat.”
“And I’ve told you that I don’t see how marrying Richard would have changed the situation,” said Emma.
“It would have given you some leverage in court! As it is—”
“As it is, I own my own home, I have a very lucrative position as an executive at CompuTech, and I enjoy my freedom. I don’t think I have too much to complain about, Mother, do you?”
Her mother sighed. “Honestly, Emma, I never expected a daughter of mine to just sit back and take it.”
“What would you like me to do, Mother?”
“Get angry! Throw his picture against the wall! React! That’s what normal women do. But not my daughter. I mean, Emma, honey, I know you’re trying to put on a brave face, but did you really have to go to the rat’s wedding?”
“That had nothing to do with bravery,” Emma explained, for what seemed like the hundredth time. “It was simply a matter of facing reality.”
“I’ll tell you about facing reality,” her mother echoed scornfully. “When a thirty-nine-year-old woman gets dumped for a twenty-two-year-old ditz, she doesn’t just shrug it off. You’re going to have to deal with your anger, dear heart, or you’re going to come apart at the seams!”
“I’m sure you’re right, Mother.”
There was a pause, followed by: “Okay. Have it your way. But just tell me one thing, Emma. Did you love that rat?”
Emma winced as a long strand of ivy came away in her hand. “Mother, I’m afraid I have to go now. The Danbury project is due before I leave for England, and—”