Chapter One
The Separation Wife
The Exit I Never Agreed To
“Roslyn and I agreed it's time for her to step back.”
My husband says this with me sitting beside him.
Across the conference table, somebody starts to smile. I watch the smile disappear when I don't return it.
“No,” I say. “We didn't.”
Russell keeps his attention on our colleagues. “It's a difficult change. I think we all appreciate how much of herself Roslyn put into this company.”
Put. As though my work here ended before I came through the doors this morning.
“I'm still here, Russell.”
“Of course you are.” He turns to me. “And nobody's minimizing your contribution.”
“Just dispensing with the contributor.”
One of my colleagues looks down at the table. I nearly follow the joke with another. Something mean enough to make Russell lose that tender expression.
Instead, I move my chair back so I can face him properly.
“You just told everyone I agreed to leave my job. I didn't. Correct that.”
Audra Marden sits on his other side. Until now, she's kept her hands beside her open laptop, waiting. She looks at Russell before she speaks.
“My understanding was that the decision was made. We were working out the handover.”
“Who gave you that understanding?”
“Russell. He said you wanted less day-to-day responsibility. That you both thought this was the right point to make the change.”
She gives me the whole answer without embarrassment. Our commercial chief, prepared for my reluctance, apparently. Not my disagreement.
“It's not true.”
Russell rests an arm along the back of my chair. He doesn't touch me. I'm acutely aware of how close his hand is to my shoulder.
“You've had a great deal on your mind,” he says. “This isn't the place to pick apart private conversations.”
“Then you shouldn't have announced one.”
Nobody interrupts. Through the glass wall, people pass in the corridor. One glances in and keeps walking. I want to be that person for a second, somebody with an ordinary reason to go somewhere else.
Russell lowers his voice. “We can talk about this at home.”
Home. He still has the nerve to offer me home as a comfort.
“You can correct it here.”
“I'm trying to protect you from a conversation you'll regret.”
My face is hot. He watches me with that same tender expression. Everyone can see him being careful with me. They can see me getting angry.
I move away from his arm.
“I don't consent to this transition,” I say. “I didn't authorize you to announce it. I'm not asking for time to get used to it.”
Russell takes his arm off my chair.
At the far end of the table, a colleague closes a notebook. Another looks from me to Audra and stays there. I know these people. Tomorrow they may have to ask him for something. I hate that I'm counting the ones who can still look at me.
Audra sits a little straighter.
“Nobody's suggesting you don't deserve recognition,” she says. “But the teams need clear reporting lines. We can't leave them wondering who's responsible while you and Russell resolve this.”
“I'm not confused about my job.”
“Other people will be if we give them conflicting instructions.”
“Then stop giving them mine.”
She turns toward Russell. “Do you want me to continue?”
He doesn't hesitate. “Yes.”
There it is. No more concern about how hard this is for me. Audra puts her fingers on the keyboard.
“Please send the current handover questions to me,” she tells our colleagues. “I'll coordinate what's outstanding with Roslyn.”
“Don't put my agreement in whatever you send.”
Audra stops typing.
“I heard you,” she says. “I also have instructions to carry out.”
“You can hear me and choose to carry them out.”
“Roslyn.” Russell's voice is sharper now. “Audra isn't responsible for your reaction.”
I look at my husband. Twenty years, and I'm sitting in a conference room trying to get him to acknowledge a sentence I just said.
I want him to send everyone away. I want him to turn to me without that careful expression and say something I can recognize. Even an apology so inadequate I'd have to reject it.
He turns toward the rest of the table.
“Please keep the teams focused. There's no reason for this to disrupt the work.”
I stand. My knees feel unreliable beneath the table, where no one can see them. By the time I push the chair in, they're holding.
Audra looks at me, then opens a new message.
* * *
At home, Russell shuts the front door behind us.
“You embarrassed yourself.”
I keep my bag on my shoulder. In the conference room, I wanted to get him alone. Now I wish there were still people watching.
“You gave me plenty to work with.”
“You could have waited until we were in private.”
“You could have asked me before telling our colleagues I was leaving.”
“We'd have ended up exactly where we are now.”
He passes me and goes into the living room. I follow. The familiar route hurts more than the conference room did. There's no place to sit that doesn't belong to an ordinary evening with him.
I stay standing.
“Tell me what you're doing with Audra.”
“We're together,” he says. “Personally. As well as at work. I want her beside me for what comes next. I'm not going to pretend otherwise.”
For a moment I look at the couch. I could sit down. He could sit beside me. There'd be less distance to cross if he changed his mind about being this man.
“You didn't mind pretending this morning.”
“I was trying to make this easier.”
“For whom?”
“All of us. Including you.”
I set my bag down. The strap left an indentation in my palm. I rub it with my thumb while he waits for me to say something else.
“I was your wife in that room.”
“You still are.”
That almost does it. Such an ordinary correction. He can still tell me what I am.
“And she knew she was sleeping with you.”
“Audra understood that we were moving on. She didn't set out to hurt you.”
“You told her I'd agreed.”
“I told her we were handling it.”
I picture Audra waiting beside her laptop. So ready to begin. I want to hate her enough that it leaves less for him.
Russell comes closer. I pick up my bag before he can reach for me.
“We can do this decently,” he says. “You'll be treated generously. You'll get full credit for your part in building the company. But I need you to cooperate with the handover and stop contradicting me in front of staff.”
“Credit for my work is conditional on making your affair convenient.”
“It's conditional on behaving professionally. You can't undermine the business and expect me to help you do it.”
He's impatient now. I know how much he put into selling what I made, how much of the company exists because he could persuade people to commit. I loved that about him. I loved being the person he turned to when the room emptied.
Today he picked someone else. I'm supposed to help her get settled.
“I'm not staying,” I say.
“Nobody's asking you to stay in the same role.”
“In this house.”
He looks toward the hall, as though I might have luggage there already.
“There's no need to make a decision about that tonight.”
“You made enough of them for me today.”
I go to the bedroom. He follows as far as the doorway while I take out a bag and put clothes in it. The first handful is mostly his. I shove them back and have to stand there with my hand in the drawer until I can see properly.
“Where are you going?”
“I'll find somewhere.”
I can afford a room. I can afford advice. I can't seem to choose a shirt without thinking about getting dressed here tomorrow.
Russell watches me fold one badly.
“Don't turn this into something it doesn't have to be. Take a few days. I'll tell people you're taking some time for yourself.”
“You'll tell them I left you.”
“Is that really the version you want circulating?”
I stop packing.
“It's what I'm doing.”
He doesn't answer that. I finish choosing enough clothes to avoid coming back tomorrow. In the bathroom, I take my own toiletries. His stay beside the sink.
I don't take anything of his. I don't want the excuse to contact him.
When I come back, he's standing beside the bed.
“Your access to the company is being removed,” he says. “You can't leave like this and retain access to the systems.”
“You said I could take a few days.”
“I offered you a way to handle it. You refused.”
I zip the bag. He's watching my face, so I give him something to watch.
“Was there ever a version where I got to disagree with you?”
“There was a version where you didn't make everyone choose sides.”
“So that's a no.”
I lift the bag from the bed. The weight pulls at my arm. Nothing in it is enough for a new life. It's enough to wash and get dressed.
At the front door, I check that I have my personal phone and wallet. A company account notification is on the screen. Access disabled.
They were quick.
I keep looking at it until the screen dims. I don't try another login. There aren't any company files in my bag, no samples or work to keep me occupied while I pretend this is a break.
Russell waits behind me.
“The process stays here, Roslyn. Whatever happens between us, the business goes on.”
I turn to him. For one ugly, pleading second, I want him to say that something besides the business matters. That twenty years deserve more than instructions delivered while I stand here with a bag.
He waits for my answer.
The company can keep using the process under its license. That isn't something I'm taking away tonight. The patent is still mine, though. Leaving this house doesn't sign it over.
I open the door.