Chapter 8: Marisol
I didn't speak for a moment.
"I got your number from Agent Reyes," Marisol said quickly.
"She said it was all right to call.
I can hang up if you want.
I just — I needed to say something to you myself.
Not through anyone else."
"It's all right," I said.
"I'm here."
A long pause.
When she spoke again, her voice was careful and very tired.
"I want you to know that I didn't know.
About you.
About the marriage.
He told me you were separated.
He told me the divorce was almost done.
He said it every time I asked, for four years." A pause.
"I stopped asking because I believed him."
"I know," I said.
"Agent Reyes told me."
"I'm not calling to make excuses.
I'm calling because—" She stopped.
Started again.
"My daughter's name is Camille.
She's fourteen months old.
And whatever Derek did, whatever happens to him — she didn't choose any of this.
And neither did you.
And I just thought—" Her voice broke slightly.
"I just thought you deserved to hear that from me."
I looked at the window.
Miami light, flat and white.
"How are you doing?" I said.
A surprised pause.
"I'm—" She let out a breath.
"I'm scared.
The house is in my name but I don't know what that means now.
I don't know if they'll take it.
I have a fourteen-month-old and I work part-time and I don't know what's coming."
"Agent Reyes said they're working to protect you and Camille from the financial consequences."
"She told me that too.
I'm trying to believe it." A pause.
"Are you safe?
I heard — I heard he hurt you."
"I'm safe.
I'm somewhere safe."
"Good." A long exhale.
"I'm sorry, Skylar.
I know that doesn't fix anything.
But I am."
"You don't have anything to be sorry for," I said.
"You were lied to.
I was lied to.
We were both used by the same person."
Silence on the line.
Not uncomfortable.
Just full.
"What will you do?" Marisol said finally.
"After all this."
I thought about the apartment in Edgewater.
My name on the deed.
Eight years of savings.
A wedding ring on a dining table beside a medical report.
"I'll figure it out," I said.
"I always have."
"Me too," she said quietly.
We stayed on the line for another moment without speaking.
Two women in Miami who had never met, connected by a man who had lied to both of them, sitting in the quiet of what came after.
"Take care of yourself," I said.
"You too," she said.
"Skylar — thank you for picking up."
She hung up.
I sat in the common room for a long time after.
Dolores came back through with a stack of folded laundry and glanced at me.
"You look like someone just handed you something heavy," she said.
"Someone did," I said.
"But it wasn't as heavy as I expected."
She nodded like that made sense and kept walking.
I picked up my phone and called Rosa.
"I want to come back to the building," I said when she answered.
"Not to the apartment.
Just to the building.
To see you."
"Come now," Rosa said immediately.
"I'll make coffee." A pause.
"Real coffee.
Not—"
"I know," I said.
"I know."
She was waiting in her doorway when I arrived.
She looked at my face — the burn, the bruise along my jaw — and her own face did something complicated and quiet.
"Come in," she said.
She didn't comment on what she saw.
She just stepped back and held the door open.
Her apartment smelled like sofrito and old books.
She had lived in the building for nineteen years.
She had watched Derek carry boxes in on our moving day.
She had brought us a plant as a welcome gift.
We sat at her kitchen table.
She poured coffee.
She set a plate of sliced mango between us without asking if I wanted any.
"Tell me," she said.
So I did.
All of it.
Marisol.
Camille.
The holding company.
The clients.
Patricia knowing for three years.
Suzanne coordinating with Derek's attorney.
Rosa listened without interrupting.
When I finished, she was quiet for a moment.
"He built a whole other life," she said.
"Yes."
"And his mother helped him hide it."
"Yes."
Rosa picked up a piece of mango.
Chewed it slowly.
Set the fork down.
"You know what I keep thinking about?" she said.
"What?"
"That plant I gave you.
When you moved in." She looked at me.
"Derek carried it inside.
He thanked me.
He shook my hand.
He looked me right in the eye." She shook her head slowly.
"I thought — what a lovely man.
What a lucky woman."
"Rosa—"
"I'm not saying it to make you feel worse," she said.
"I'm saying it because he fooled everyone.
Not just you.
Everyone." She reached across the table and put her hand over mine.
"That is not a reflection of you.
You understand me?
That is a reflection of him."
My eyes burned.
I hadn't cried yet.
Not once since the hospital.
I had been too busy moving, signing, calling, meeting, listening, deciding.
Now, at Rosa's kitchen table, with mango on a plate between us and her hand over mine, something in my chest finally gave way.
I didn't sob.
I just cried — quietly, steadily, the way a long tension releases.
Rosa didn't say anything.
She just kept her hand where it was.
Outside, the building hummed with its ordinary afternoon sounds.
Somewhere down the hall, a television.
A door closing.
May you like
A child's voice.
The ordinary world, continuing.
