Chapter 4
“She’s all alone.”
Harrison finally looked at me the way someone looks at a problem they have successfully solved.
“She has her career and her independence.”
He gave a faint laugh.
“She’ll probably do better alone.”
Maybe he expected me to defend myself.
Instead, I watched rainwater roll from the edge of his umbrella onto the pavement.
Then he added, “Please move your things out soon.”
I looked up.
“Khloe loves the master bedroom,” he said.
“She wants to remodel it.”
That one almost made me laugh.
The brownstone had been purchased mostly with money I earned.
I had selected the flooring.
I had restored the original molding.
I had stood in that bedroom with an architect for three hours deciding how to preserve the nineteenth-century fireplace.
Now Khloe wanted to remodel it.
“I’ll be out before next week,” I said.
Harrison nodded approvingly.
I turned to leave.
“Caroline.”
I stopped.
He stepped away from Khloe as though he were about to offer me one last piece of wisdom.
“Oh, and those investments of yours?”
I waited.
“The market is terrible.”
His expression became almost paternal.
“Cash out while you can.”
I said nothing.
“A woman shouldn’t obsess over building an empire.”
Khloe smiled beside him.
“Finding a good man to settle down with is what really matters.”
For years, he had been saying versions of the same thing.
At first I had been the clever wife he admired.
Then I became too ambitious.
Too independent.
Too cold.
Too difficult.
Too much.
He never asked why my office light stayed on until dawn.
He never asked why executives on three continents waited for my decisions.
He never asked why I was answering messages at three in the morning or why financial publications sometimes called my assistant requesting comments.
He only complained that I was not soft enough.
Not domestic enough.
Not dependent enough.
Khloe was everything he believed a woman should be.
She needed him.
She praised him.
She looked impressed when he talked.
She made him feel enormous.
I had spent five years making myself smaller so he would not feel overshadowed.
I suddenly understood that I could have disappeared completely and it still would not have been enough.
I walked away from them in the rain and hailed a cab.
I did not look back.
At JFK, I sat alone near the gate with one suitcase, my leather tote, and a boarding pass to Washington State.