The Day I Stopped Holding This Family Together Chapter 21

The Day I Stopped Holding This Family Together Chapter 21: Elena’s Last Stand
I thought I was done with Elena.
I was not.
She came to my apartment two weeks after the firm collapsed.
I checked the security feed at 11 PM and she was standing in the lobby. No makeup. Hair tied back. Sweatpants. A puffy down jacket two sizes too big. She looked nothing like the woman in the crimson dress.
She looked like a person who had not slept in days.
I almost did not open the door.
I picked up the intercom.
“What do you want.”
“Five minutes. Then I leave. I swear.”
“Why.”
“Because I’m the one who’s been sending you the photographs.”
I went still.
I buzzed her up.
She stood in my doorway with her hands shoved deep in her jacket pockets. She did not try to come in. She did not ask. She just stood there.
“Talk.”
“It was me. The photo in the driveway. The Tahoe email. The picture in the restaurant. The thing about Ryker. All of it. I sent it from a burner.”
“Why.”
“Because I was tired.”
“Of what.”
“Of waiting for him to leave you. He told me for four years that he was going to. The first year, I believed him. The second year, I started taking pictures. By the third year, I was building a file. By the fourth year, I had figured out that he was never going to leave you. He was never going to leave anyone. He was going to live forever with a wife who managed his life and a mistress who managed his ego. The wife would handle the school forms, and I would handle the dinners. He was happy. He was *thriving.*”
She laughed, a hollow sound.
“Do you know what made it worse, Sienna? You. The fact that you were nice to me at the firm party two Christmases ago. The fact that you remembered my coffee order. The fact that you sent me a card when my dog died. He let me have a relationship with the woman whose life I was destroying, because he thought it was funny that you didn’t know. He laughed about it in bed.”
I felt sick.
“So you started sending photos.”
“I waited. I waited until I saw you with a suitcase. I knew the second I saw you in the lobby that night that you were finally leaving him. I had been parked across the street for hours, Sienna. I was about to come up and tell you. And then Ryker showed up. And I thought — *okay. He’s safe. She’s safe.* And I sent you the first message because I wanted you to know what you were really walking into.”
“Why are you telling me this now.”
“Because I’m leaving Austin. My sister is in Portland. I’m staying with her. I wanted to apologize before I went. To you. Not to him.” She paused. “Did you know he kept a key to my apartment.”
“No.”
“I changed the locks last week. The day after he was fired. He’d been using it to come and go for four years. He never asked. He just took my spare and never gave it back.”
I looked at her for a long time.
“Elena.”
“Yeah.”
“You took my husband for four years.”
“I did.”
“And he took you for four years.”
“He did.”
“You weren’t a person to him. You were a weapon. He wanted to hurt Ryker. You were a way to do that. Did you know.”
She looked at her shoes.
“I figured it out about eighteen months in. When he started asking me about Ryker. Where Ryker was traveling. What deals Ryker was working. Who Ryker was sleeping with. I realized he wasn’t asking because he was jealous of the husband I’d left. He was asking because he was using me to spy on a man he hated. I was an asset, not an affair.”
I did not say anything.
“I should have left him then,” she said. “I should have walked out the day I figured it out. I didn’t. I stayed because I’d already destroyed my own marriage to be there and I couldn’t admit I’d done it for nothing. I’m not going to lie to you, Sienna. I knew what I was doing for the last two and a half years. I knew you. I knew Theo. I sent the school the form that put my name on it. Cade signed it but I drafted it. I wanted your name off. I wanted to be Theo’s mother. Just for a day. Just to see what it felt like.”
I leaned against the doorframe.
“Did you ever meet him.”
“Theo? No.”
“He’s a wonderful kid. He’s going to be okay.”
“I figured.”
A silence.
“I’m not going to forgive you, Elena.”
“I’m not asking.”
“But I want you to do one thing for me.”
“Anything.”
“Tell Ryker yourself. Don’t make me do it. Don’t make me carry this for him. Tell him you’ve been sending me the photos. Tell him you knew Cade was using you against him. Tell him directly. Send him an email. Tonight.”
“Okay.”
“And don’t try to be his friend again. Don’t reach out. Don’t apologize in person. Don’t show up to his office. He is not yours to make peace with.”
“Okay.”
She turned to go.
“Elena.”
She stopped.
“Did Cade really make a copy of my necklace.”
“Yes. He told the jeweler it was a gift for his sister. The jeweler called me last month after Ryker started buying out the firm. He’s been trying to figure out who to give the receipt to.”
“What’s the jeweler’s name.”
She gave it to me.
She walked to the elevator. She did not look back.
I closed the door.
I went to bed.
In the morning, I called the jeweler.
He gave me the original sketch.
It really had been hand-drawn by Cade. It really had been one of a kind. He had taken the original and made it for me, and then he had taken a photograph of it and ordered a copy for the woman who was sleeping with him while I sat in my kitchen labeling laundry detergent.
I framed the sketch.
I hung it in my new office.
I called it *Foundation No. 1.*