After Seven Empty Chairs, I Took My Daughter and Left Chapter 18

After Seven Empty Chairs, I Took My Daughter and Left Chapter 18

Over the next week, Ava’s life was filled with a new, light rhythm.

Elias became a regular visitor to her studio. He no longer created those clumsy “chance encounters.” Instead, he openly appeared every afternoon with coffee and, in his capacity as “art consultant,” gave the most sincere praise to every child’s painting newly hung on the wall. He also provided the studio’s first sponsorship under the name of the Mercer Foundation, solving all her start-up funding issues.

Ava’s life filled with sunlight, the smell of paint, and Elias’s warm laughter. The shadow of divorce was rapidly dispersed by a sweetness so unfamiliar it almost startled her.

Meanwhile, at the other end of Boston, Noah Whitaker’s life was falling into a complete mess.

Since the farce at his father’s birthday banquet, gossip in Boston’s upper circles had swarmed around Sloane like flies. Every day, she cried to Noah about the way the other socialites looked at her and accused the Whitaker family of treating her coldly.

To comfort her, and also to prove his “commitment” to Sloane to everyone, Noah made a decision.

“Move in, Sloane,” he told her. “Move into the Beacon Hill house and live with us.”

However, when Noah returned alone after many days to the townhouse that had once belonged to him and Ava, he was greeted by a dead silence. He went to the primary bedroom to pack some things and make space for Sloane, but in the living room, on a side table, he saw the kraft document box he had been deliberately ignoring.

Irritated, he tore open the seal, wanting to see what unnecessary “keepsake” Ava had left behind this time.

The top document made the impatience on his face freeze instantly.

It was a divorce judgment from the Massachusetts Probate and Family Court. In the signature line, Ava’s name was clear and neat.

His heart sank.

He threw the document aside and saw another item in the box: a thick binder, its cover printed in gilt letters with a title.

The Seven Empty Chairs.

Noah’s fingers trembled as he opened the first page.

It was the program from Lily’s school concert. Beside it was a photo: Lily in her performance costume, with an empty chair beside her. Under the photo was a screenshot of the text he had sent Ava.

“Sorry. Sloane is in a terrible emotional state today. I have to stay with her.”

The second page was the appointment email for the adoption social worker’s final home visit. Next to it was another text.

“Sloane’s apartment seems to have been broken into. I need to go check. You handle it first.”

The third page, the fourth page…

Every absence, every excuse, had been recorded by Ava in the calmest, most irrefutable way, like a cold display of evidence.

Noah snapped the binder shut. A huge wave of displeasure and anger at being betrayed swept over him.

He rushed into the primary bedroom and pulled open the enormous walk-in closet. Half of it was empty. All of Ava and Lily’s clothes, shoes, and accessories had vanished without a trace, as if they had never lived there. The photo of him and Ava on the bedside table was gone. The skincare products that belonged to her in the bathroom had disappeared, too.

Ava, you really are something.

Noah’s fists clenched tight. Just because I spent more time with Sloane a few times? You abandoned this marriage so easily? That look you used to have, like you loved me beyond reason, was all an act? Is your love really that shallow?

For some reason, after confirming that Ava and Lily had truly, completely left, a sharp, unfamiliar sensation crossed his heart. His chest tightened, making it hard to breathe.

No, he told himself. The one I have always loved is Sloane. Ava was only a respectable, suitable choice for a wife. He forced that thought down over the strange panic.

That night, Sloane officially moved into the Beacon Hill townhouse. In a gloomy mood, Noah drank a great deal of bourbon at dinner. Under Sloane’s suggestive seduction, the two of them, half-willingly, half-pushed, ended up in the primary bedroom.

Afterward, Noah couldn’t sleep. He looked at Sloane sleeping beside him, the face he had once dreamed of day and night now right before his eyes. He had finally obtained the woman he had worshiped in his youth, yet his heart felt hollow, as if a piece had been dug out.

Images of Ava holding Lily while reading to her, Lily’s focused expression before the easel, all the scenes he had once dismissed, now flashed through his mind uncontrollably, so clear they made him panic.