Chapter 6 - THE VIEW FROM ABOVE
Audrey watched them leave from her balcony.
She had a pair of binoculars she had found in the room's amenity kit.
She saw the seven of them trudging across the parking lot,
pulling their heavy bags behind them.
They looked like a slow-moving train of misery.
They were piling into two Ubers,
the cheapest ones available,
since they couldn't afford the luxury SUVs they had arrived in.
She felt a twinge of something in her chest,
but it wasn't guilt.
It was the feeling of a wound finally beginning to close.
She went back inside,
ordered a room service steak,
and opened a bottle of wine that she didn't have to share.
She spent the evening looking at her finances.
She realized that without Trevor’s family draining her,
she was significantly wealthier than she had thought.
She had been subsidizing a lifestyle for people who didn't even like her.
She saw the charges for Diane's dental work.
The "loans" to Brooke that were never repaid.
The thousands of dollars spent on dinners where she was the butt of every joke.
She picked up her phone and made one more call.
Not to Trevor.
But to her lawyer in Atlanta.
"I want to file,"
she said,
the words feeling like a cool breeze.
"And I want a full audit of the marital assets."
"Including the money he diverted to his parents over the last three years."
The lawyer,
a woman who had been waiting for this call for a long time,
chuckled.
"I’ll have the papers ready by the time you fly back,
Audrey."
"Enjoy your vacation."
Audrey hung up and looked at the moon over the ocean.
She was forty years old,
successful,
and for the first time in her life,
she was her own priority.
She slept better that night than she had in a decade.
No snoring Trevor.
No worrying about Diane’s mood.
May you like
No planning for everyone else's happiness.
Just the sound of the waves and the feeling of being free.
