Chapter 19
It felt like peace.
My husband was in Paris with the woman he had never stopped loving when I went into labor with our daughter.Chapter 1: PART 1: THE NIGHT HE WASN'T THERE
PART 5: THE LIFE THAT DIDN'T WAIT
Lily turned one on a rainy Tuesday in April.
Vincent arrived carrying no diamonds.
No designer clothes.
No enormous stuffed animal imported from Europe.
He brought a wooden music box.
It was simple.
Handmade.
On the inside, beneath the lid, were six words.
**For every night I wasn't there.**
I read them twice.
Then looked at him.
"Lily can't read."
"I know."
"Then this is partly for you."
He smiled sadly.
"Probably."
That was one thing about the Vincent who existed after our divorce.
He had become more honest about his own motives.
Not perfect.
Not transformed into a different man.
But less interested in pretending.
The birthday gathering was small.
Teresa.
Margaret, who drove down from Wisconsin.
My friend Rachel.
A few neighbors.
Frances stopped by for twenty minutes and somehow ended up holding Lily while discussing gardening with Teresa.
Vincent stayed near the edge of the room at first.
A year earlier, he would have been the center of any gathering.
People oriented themselves around him.
Now the room revolved around Lily.
Exactly as it should.
She wore a pale yellow dress and had frosting in her hair within eleven minutes.
Vincent laughed when she smashed both hands into the cake.
Margaret cried.
Teresa took approximately four hundred photographs.
I stood near the kitchen doorway and watched.
This was not the life I had imagined when I married Vincent.
It was better.
Not because it was richer.
It wasn't.
Not because I had "won."
Divorce didn't feel like winning.
It felt like stopping a fight I had been having alone.
The past year had been difficult.
There were nights Lily had fevers and I panicked.
Days I missed adult conversation.
Months when restarting my restoration work felt impossible.
I took small residential projects first.
A brownstone library in Lincoln Park.
A century-old kitchen in Oak Park.
A Victorian dining room where someone had painted over beautiful original trim.
I loved bringing damaged things back without pretending they had never been damaged.
Maybe that was why the work felt right.
By Lily's first birthday, I had three employees.
A waiting list.
A small office above a bakery.
Nothing compared with Vincent's empire.