As co-founder.
I bought a dress.
Not to prove anything to Gerald.
To prove something to the woman who’d stopped recognizing herself in the mirror three months earlier.
I walked into that ballroom on the arm of my own two grown children — Daniel and Sophie — and I watched three hundred people slowly realize who I was, because Ruth had made sure the updated company history went out in the program.
Co-founder. Eleanor Vance. Original architect of the Lakeside engine.
Gerald was at the front of the room, mid-handshake, when he saw us come in.
Chelsea was on his arm in silver.
She spotted me, and she did the thing that people like Chelsea always do — she looked me up and down, slowly, and turned to whisper something to the woman beside her.
I knew exactly what she said, because I could read it on her mouth.
“That’s the ex-wife. The one who let herself go.”
