Nothing else there 5

The suitcase is the same one from the honeymoon.

Thirteen years old, zipper still stiff, luggage tag still reading Mrs. Carraway in handwriting that belongs to a woman I don’t recognize anymore.

I pull it from the closet the morning after the dinner. I haven’t slept — spent the night on the bathroom floor with my hand on my stomach, running numbers I don’t have. Rent. A doctor for the twins. A lawyer I can’t afford.

The numbers don’t work. But the sun came through the window and my hands started packing. Because whatever I can’t solve sitting down, I definitely can’t solve in this house.

The jewelry box is on the dresser. Diamond earrings — fifth anniversary. Pearl necklace — Lily’s birth. Cartier bracelet — a Christmas where he handed me the box without looking up from his phone.

They were present but now they’re currency.

I wrap each piece in a sock and tuck them under the clothes. Earrings are rent. Pearls are a deposit. Bracelet is a doctor who won’t ask why I don’t have insurance.

I’m zipping the suitcase when a voice carries up from the front door. Young, bright and proprietary.

“This hallway is so dark. We’ll need to repaint!”

I walk to the top of the stairs and see a girl. She hardly looks like a grown woman, nineteen at most. She’s standing in the foyer with a Louis Vuitton suitcase and a garment bag, scanning the walls like a buyer surveys a property.

Jesus. This girl was probably seven or something when I married Dominic.

He’s behind her, phone to his ear, not looking up. Then she sees me on the landing and smiles.

“You must be Aria. I’m Camille.” She touches the wallpaper with one finger. “Dominic told me you’d still be here. Honestly, it’ll be easier once you’ve cleared out. I have movers coming Thursday.”

When I descend the stairs, she extends her hand, but I don’t take it.

I look at this girl — standing in my foyer, redecorating my house, speaking about my life in the past tense — and then I look past her at Dominic. He has ended his call and is watching us from the doorway with careful expression.

“You really brought her here. Couldn’t wait for another day, huh?” My voice is low and ice cold, maybe for the first time in years of marriage. “We haven’t even told Lily yet, and you brought this girl into her home?”

“Lily will adjust,” he says. “Children are resilient.”

“She’s twelve! She doesn’t know we’re divorcing—”

“Aria,” Camille’s voice came from behind me, a cabinet closes, “is there a KitchenAid? I only see a hand mixer.”

I keep my eyes on Dominic. “She’s going to walk through that door and find a stranger in her kitchen and her mother packing?”

“Then I’d suggest you finish packing before she gets home.”

The words land like a palm against my sternum. Behind me, Camille has found Lily’s cereal shelf. “Oh, baby girl still eats this? We’ll switch her to something better… Something healthy and vegan!”

I step closer to Dominic, dangerously lowering my voice. “I am not giving you my daughter.”

“You don’t have a lawyer, Aria. You don’t have an income. You don’t even have a home.” His voice isn’t cruel, it’s factual. This is worse. “I’m not taking Lily from you. I’m keeping her in her house, her school, her life. You’re welcome to visit.”

“Visit.” The word tastes rotten. “You want me to visit my daughter who you didn’t care about for years until recently?”

“I want what’s best for her. Right now, that’s stability.” He straightens his cuff. “You can be part of that. Or you can make this harder than it needs to be. And lose not only me, but her as well.”

Camille appears in the kitchen doorway, leaning against the frame with a glass of water — my glass, from my cabinet. She takes a sip, looking me over.

“Babe, is she always this tense? Maybe she needs a night out or something. A little… release.” She smiles at me, sweetly poisoned. “You look like you haven’t relaxed in years, dear. No wonder you couldn’t keep your husband.”

My nails bite into my palms. Dominic doesn’t correct her, doesn’t even look at her, when behind us the front door opens.

Lily walks in with her backpack over one shoulder. She stops in the hallway and her eyes immediately move. Louis Vuitton suitcase. The other woman in the kitchen. Her father’s standing too close to her mother with the wrong expression on his face.

And then — the honeymoon suitcase by the stairs. The one she recognizes as mine.

“Mom?” Her voice is small. “What’s happening?”

The hallway goes silent and Camille turns around, holding a coffee mug she’s already decided to replace. Dominic straightens his other cuff, waiting.

I cross the hallway and kneel in front of my daughter, taking her face in both hands. Her skin is warm, eyes are searching mine for the thing I can’t give her — a version of this that doesn’t hurt.

“Dad and I have decided to live in different places for a while.” My voice is steady. I make it steady. “Just for a while. It has nothing to do with you. I’m going to call you every single—”

“No.” Her face crumples. Not slowly, all at once, like a paper bag crushed by a fist. “No, no, no. Where are you going?”

“Lily, sweetheart…”

“Who is that woman?” She’s pointing at Camille now, her hand shaking. “Why is she in our kitchen? Why does she have your mug?”

“A friend of mine,” Dominic says from behind me.

“Nobody you need to worry about,” I say at the same time with him.

Lily looks between us and I see it. The exact moment my daughter understands that both her parents are lying, and that the lies are not the same shape.

She lunges for my suitcase, both hands on the handle, pulling it away from the stairs. “You’re not leaving. Mom, you can’t… You promised. You always said you’d never—”

“Baby, I’m not leaving you. I’m…”

“Then why is the suitcase packed?” Her voice breaks into something high and jagged and it’s the worst sound I’ve ever heard, worse than anything. “Mommy, please. Please don’t go. I promise, I’ll be good. I’ll be so good. Just don’t…”

“Lily.” I wrap my arms around her.

She fights it for a second and then collapses into me, sobbing so hard her whole body shakes and I hold her through it. I hold her the way I held her when she was three and afraid of thunder.

Except now the thing she’s afraid of is me walking out the door and I can’t tell her the storm isn’t real because it is.

It’s standing in our hallway straightening his cuffs.

I press my mouth into her hair sensing her shampoo. The strawberry one she picked out herself. “I’m not going anywhere. Okay? I’m right here.”

She’s gripping my shirt so tight the fabric stretches. I can feel her heartbeat against my chest, hammering, the panicked rhythm of a child whose world just broke open in front of her.

I look up over Lily’s shoulder and Dominic is watching us. His jaw is tight with no guilt, I stopped looking for that years ago, but something else. Calculation, maybe. Or the particular discomfort of a man who planned a clean transaction and got a mess instead.

“For God’s sake…” he says low and irritated, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Stop this, Aria. Just stop making a scene.”

I don’t answer, keep holding my daughter.

“I’m not…” He exhales through his teeth, drops his hand. “I’m not a monster. Alright? You can stay in the guest room until the hearing. A few days, okay?”

Camille straightens in the kitchen doorway. “Excuse me?”

“A few days, Camille.”

“You told me she’d be gone by—”

“I said a few days.” He doesn’t raise his voice, doesn’t need to. He looks at her the way he’s looked at me for thirteen years — the look that says the conversation is over and you just haven’t realized it yet. “She stays in the guest room. It’s handled.”

Camille’s mouth thins as she sets the glass down on the counter — hard enough that I hear it from across the room — and walks past us toward the stairs without looking at me.

Her perfume trails behind her. Something expensive and aggressively young.

Lily is still pressed against my chest. Her breathing is slowing. The sobs have gone quiet, turned into the small hiccupping sounds that come after.

I stroke her hair. I don’t look at Dominic.

“Come on,” I say into the top of her head. “Let’s go upstairs.”