Chapter 4 - The Mistress's Departure
The following week was a whirlwind of legal filings and public fallout.
My father didn't just sue for divorce;
he filed a civil suit for intentional infliction of emotional distress.
And he didn't stop there.
He sent the video and the audio to the CEO of the firm where Derek worked.
Derek was a senior vice president of public relations.
His entire job was based on maintaining a positive image.
By Tuesday,
the video had gone viral in the local business community.
The "Family Man of the Year" was now the "Father who locked his baby in the snow."
I was sitting in my kitchen,
drinking coffee,
when I saw a taxi pull up to the house.
Tabitha jumped out,
looking disheveled and panicked.
She started pounding on the door,
her red coat now stained and wrinkled.
"Nora!
Open the door!"
she screamed.
I opened it just a crack,
leaving the security chain on.
"What do you want,
Tabitha?"
"Derek’s accounts are frozen!"
she cried,
her eyes wide with desperation.
"They took my car!
They said it was bought with stolen funds!"
"It was,"
I said simply.
"Derek used my daughter’s college fund to buy that Mercedes for you."
"I didn't know!"
she lied,
her voice cracking.
"He told me he was a millionaire!"
"He’s a man with a lot of debt and a very dark heart,"
I told her.
"And now he’s a man with no job."
"They fired him?"
she whispered,
her face falling.
"An hour ago,"
I confirmed.
"Moral turpitude clause."
She looked back at the taxi,
where the meter was running.
"I have nowhere to go,"
she said.
"Derek’s mom is staying on a friend’s couch,
and she won't even talk to me."
"Brenda always did value loyalty over reality,"
I said.
"But that’s not my problem."
"You’re a woman,
Nora,"
she pleaded.
"How can you be so heartless?"
I laughed,
a genuine,
cold laugh.
"Heartless?"
"You stood in my living room on Christmas Eve and watched a grandmother pack a toddler's diapers into trash bags."
"You sipped champagne while I walked into a blizzard."
"You don't get to talk to me about heart,
Tabitha."
I closed the door and locked it,
listening to her heels click away down the porch steps.
I watched through the window as she argued with the taxi driver about the fare.
She was a ghost of a life I was finished with.
Later that day,
Derek called me from a burner phone.
He didn't sound like the confident man in the red sweater.
He sounded broken.
"Nora,
please,"
he sobbed.
"I’ll give you everything.
Just stop the lawsuits."
"You don't have anything left to give,
Derek,"
I said.
"The trust has the house."
"The courts have the offshore money."
"And the police have the video."
"What do you want from me?"
he asked.
"I want you to stay away from Daisy,"
I said,
each word a heavy stone.
"I want her to forget the sound of your voice."
"I want her to grow up in a world where men like you are just stories about what not to become."
I hung up before he could answer.
I went into Daisy’s room,
where she was napping peacefully.
She looked so small and so perfect.
She was the only thing that mattered.
May you like
And for the first time in six years,
I knew she was truly safe.
