My husband, Julius, had his arm around that woman, standing right beside her.
The family portrait was dated November 18, 2023.
Three days after my son's burial.
Every piece of furniture in this apartment was something I'd picked out myself. But not a single trace of the life being lived here belonged to me.
Before I'd gone back home, I'd seen Julius off to work at the door. The tie I'd knotted for him with my own hands hung on the coat rack. The vitamins I'd tucked into his bag, reminding him to take them every day, sat on the living room shelf.
Yet in this entire apartment, there wasn't a single sign I'd ever existed.
I sat down on the couch and forced my emotions into a tight knot.
"How long have you been living here?"
The woman started to answer, but the old lady grabbed her arm.
"Pamela, if you have questions, take them up with Julius."
The old woman called me by name. She knew exactly who I was.
"I will ask him. But right now, I'm asking you."
"Julius told us himself—he doesn't love you. The only reason he hasn't divorced you is because he pities you." The woman pulled the child closer, cradling him like a trophy, her eyes gleaming. "Your son is dead. You're old. You can't have any more children. Everything the James family has will belong to Myron."
"When did you move in?"
I asked again.
She pointed at the family portrait. "You can see for yourself. That was taken right after I moved in. Our first photo together."
Louis died on November 15. An accident.
Three days.
He couldn't even wait seven.
He'd moved his mistress and his illegitimate child into the wedding apartment I'd prepared for my son.
The woman's phone rang. She shouted into it like a drowning person calling for a lifeline.
"Julius, she's here! She's sitting in the living room right now!"
His voice on the other end turned frantic.
"Wait for me. I'm coming back."
This morning, before I'd started my trip back, I'd asked him if he had time to pick me up.
His reply had been short. "Business trip. No time."
Business trip. No time.
So his business trips only applied to me. His time had never been mine to have.
I stood and pointed to the spot in the center of the living room where the memorial tablet should have been.
"What happened to what was here? Where did you put it?"
The woman pointed a trembling finger toward the utility closet beside the bathroom.
I dug through the clutter. My son's memorial tablet, his name carved into the wood, was buried beneath a pile of garbage.
It had been snapped in two. A wooden splinter sliced across my palm.
Blood welled up, but I didn't feel a thing.
"Pamela, now that you know, why don't you do yourself a favor and bow out gracefully?" The woman wouldn't stop talking. "You're just some old woman. You have nothing left to offer Julius. Why keep him chained down with a marriage certificate?"
Every word dripped with venom, thick with indignation—as though the one who'd seduced Julius and wrecked a marriage wasn't her, but me.
I cradled the broken tablet against my chest and walked toward the door.
"You don't get to say those things to me."
I stopped in front of her and looked her dead in the eye.
I raised my hand and wiped the blood from my palm.
The front door slammed open with a bang. Julius burst in, gasping for air, sweat beading across his forehead. He must have taken the stairs all the way up to the sixth floor.
"Pamela, you've gone too far!"
He seized my wrist and squeezed. Hard.
Then he saw the blood dripping from my palm. His grip loosened. He let go.
And stepped back to shield the woman and the child behind him.
"Beulah, go inside. I'll handle this."
Beulah. Beulah Henson.
So it was her.
The scholarship student Julius had been sponsoring for ten years.
Once the bedroom door clicked shut and he was satisfied that I posed no threat to Beulah and her family, Julius dropped his guard.
