Chapter 1 - Five Minutes at the Christmas Table
The slap landed before I saw Cordelia lift her hand.
My head snapped sideways. The silver wine carafe in my hand struck the edge of the table, and a sheet of Cabernet splashed across my mother’s dress and my father’s black suit.
Someone laughed.
Not a nervous laugh.
A real one.
I turned slowly enough to see my mother, Linda, staring down at the dark red stain spreading across the silver fabric she had bought specifically for Christmas dinner.
Dad had spent thirty-five years restoring hardwood floors and custom staircases in other people’s expensive homes. He knew how to work around men who treated him like hired help.
But I had never seen George Whitman look small until that moment.
Cordelia Hale stood beside me in a green off-the-shoulder gown, blonde hair perfect, expression almost cheerful.
“Trash belongs outside, Sara.”
Behind her, my husband did nothing.
Thaddius still held his phone.
His sister grabbed my wrist and shoved my arm downward. The last of the wine spilled over the table and across Mom’s lap.
“Your parents disgust me.”
My mother made a tiny sound.
Dad pushed his chair back.
“That’s enough.”
Cordelia looked at him as though a waiter had spoken without permission.
“Sit down, George.”
A few Hale relatives watched with the fascinated expressions people wear when someone else is being humiliated.
Aunt Caroline covered a smile behind her napkin.
Thaddius’s cousin Peter stared into his wine.
Nobody told Cordelia to stop.
I tore my wrist free and stepped between her and my parents.
Then I looked at my husband.
“Five minutes. Fix this.”
Thaddius blinked.
“Sara—”
“Five.”
“Don’t make a scene.”
I almost laughed.
My cheek was burning.
My mother was soaked in wine.
His sister had just called my parents trash in front of twenty people.
And I was making the scene.
I held out my hand.
“Give me your phone.”
“Why?”
I took it before he could pull away.
Cordelia’s confidence flickered.
I opened the number Thaddius already had saved for the attorney who had drafted our post-marital business agreement two years earlier.
Then I held the screen where he could see it.
“You have four minutes now.”
Thaddius’s expression hardened.
For one second, I thought he might finally turn on his sister.
Instead he said, “Divorce me, then.”
My parents both looked at him.
Cordelia smiled again.
That was when something stopped making sense.
Thaddius was angry.
But he wasn’t surprised.
May you like
And when I looked at Cordelia, I realized she wasn’t surprised either.
They had been waiting for me to threaten divorce.
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