When I Left, the Willows Swayed

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The ninety-ninth time my best friend helped me test my husband, she sent the screenshot as usual.

In the picture, Fred Harding's reply was cool: I'm married.

I sent Paige Sullivan a kissy emoji, smiling, and saved the screenshot to my album.

There were ninety-nine screenshots like it in that album, and every one of them made me feel like I'd married a good man.

That night I leaned against Fred's shoulder and decided I'd stop testing him.

Fred lay beside me scrolling his phone, and suddenly he laughed.

"Celeste Pruitt, that loyalty test of yours, still not tired of it?"

I froze. His tone was flat.

"The first time she added me, I knew you'd set it up."

"But Paige really does know how to work a man, so the night of that first test, we were already together."

He paused, as if remembering something funny.

"After that, before every test she came to me first. Those pictures you saved? She begged me in bed to help her write them."

The savoring look on his face pushed a wave of bile up my throat.

I thought of the line Paige always tacked onto each screenshot: "Relax, babe, your husband adores you."

So she'd typed those while the warmth of his side of the bed hadn't even faded yet.

I deleted every screenshot in the album.

The second all ninety-nine pictures vanished, our marriage ended too.

......

"Fred, let's get divorced."

I held the emptied album up in front of him.

Fred's voice came from beside me, carrying a trace of careless amusement.

"You really didn't have to delete them. Keeping them as a memento wouldn't have hurt, since I wrote those captions for her myself."

"Paige's a dim girl. She can't even tell a lie that holds together."

I finally turned my head and looked at this face that had shared my bed for five years.

His eyes still held the old gentleness.

"Neither of us meant to affect the marriage. She wanted the thrill, I needed an outlet. We each got what we needed."

He reached out and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear, his fingertips warm, the motion practiced and easy.

"Celeste, if you hadn't insisted on your loyalty test, if you hadn't pushed her right in front of me, none of it would ever have started."

He drew his hand back, and there was even a note of reproach in his tone.

"You created the temptation with your own hands, and now you come blaming me for failing the test. That's hardly fair, is it?"

I looked at those righteous eyes of his and it struck me as absurd beyond belief.

So in his mind, the cheating wasn't just an amusing game, the fault was entirely mine.

"If you've already lied to me this many times, why confess today?" I forced down the tremor in my voice.

"Because you keep bothering her. The girl's been nagging me. Just stop using her for your tests." Fred sighed and got up out of bed.

He poured a glass of water and held it out to me.

"I know you've been under a lot of pressure lately, that you need this fake sense of security. I played along in your little act to make you happy. Isn't that a kind of love?"

"Get some sleep. Stop throwing a fit."

I didn't take the glass.

My thoughts drifted, helplessly, back to five years ago.

Back then we'd just started the company, and to land our first hundred-thousand-dollar investment, Fred drank with a client until his stomach bled.

On the hospital bed, cold sweat breaking out from the pain, he still gripped my hand.

"Nina, from now on my back belongs to you, always." He'd smiled weakly then, his eyes full of trust he held nothing back from.

"Even if the whole world betrays you, I never will."

Back then, Fred would blush just telling me a white lie.

Later there were more and more work dinners, he came home later and later, and one young woman after another kept coming.

I was afraid we'd drift apart, so I asked Paige, again and again, to test him.

I closed my eyes and crushed that ridiculous little memory flat, deep inside me.

"The aurora trip next month, I'm not going."

That was our fifth-anniversary trip, three months in the planning, the itinerary something I'd built piece by piece over a dozen sleepless nights.

Fred set the glass down on the nightstand with a soft clink.

"Fine, don't go then. I've already passed the tickets and the itinerary to Paige." He lay back down and pulled the blanket over himself.

My head snapped toward him.

His eyes were closed, his tone as matter-of-fact as ever.

"You've been too sensitive lately. It's worn me out."

"Paige happens to be on her annual leave, and she said she'd like to see it. The hotel's booked anyway. Cancel it and it'd just be a waste."

He turned over and gave me his back.

"You're only anxious because the test slipped out of your control. Sleep it off and you'll be fine."

"The place as Mrs. Harding is always yours. I never even thought to guard my assets against you. What more could you want?"

I looked at his back. I didn't cry, and I didn't make a scene.

My phone screen lit up just then.

It was a message from my lawyer, Paddy Stephens.

"Ms. Pruitt, the risk-isolation agreement you commissioned earlier has taken effect. The moment you sign, the core shares under Mr. Harding's name will be fully frozen for breach of contract."

The next morning, at the caf downstairs from the office.

Paddy Stephens slid a thick equity transfer agreement across the table to me.

"Sign this, and Fred loses absolute control of the company." He pushed his gold-rimmed glasses up, his tone professional and cool. "Ms. Pruitt, don't waste your feelings on a piece of garbage. Taking back what's yours is the best revenge."

I picked up the pen beside me. The moment the nib touched the paper, there wasn't a flicker of hesitation in me.

Fifteen minutes later, I pushed open the door of the company conference room.

Fred was sitting at the head of the table, Paige standing beside him with a file in her hands.

When he saw me come in, his brow creased slightly.

"What are you doing here? Didn't I tell you to rest at home for a few days?"

There was a note of lofty charity in his voice.

I pulled out the chair across from him and sat, my gaze sweeping over Paige.

She was dressed in a sharply tailored suit today, but around her neck was a Van Cleef & Arpels necklace.

The one I'd put in my cart last month, meaning to buy it for myself as a birthday present.

"If I hadn't come, how would I have found out you'd handed the Everline Group deal off to someone else?" I leaned back in the chair, my voice calm.

Fred set down his pen and sighed.

"Celeste, don't bring your personal feelings into work."

He looked at me with an extremely magnanimous expression.

"The state you're in right now, you can't possibly handle the Everline deal. Paige may lack experience, but she's willing to learn."

"I'm taking some of the pressure off you. Why can't you appreciate that?"

Paige's eyes reddened at once. Right on cue, she stepped forward and held the file out to me.

"That's right, Cel. Fred's just worried about you. Don't worry, I'll follow up on it properly."

She gave me a little smile, but the challenge in her eyes was impossible to hide.

I didn't take the file. I just looked at her quietly.

"Work isn't as simple as seducing a man."

"I've been on the Everline deal for half a year. You sure you can handle it?"

Paige shook her head quickly. "Cel, I know I was wrong. I just... I was just so envious of you."

Tears fell, landing on the file.

"You have everything. A great career, a husband who adores you. Every time I saw how happy you were, I couldn't help thinking, what if Fred loved me instead?"

"I never meant to wreck your family. I just wanted to borrow a little of your happiness."

I watched her weep her way through the performance, and felt nothing at all inside.

Envy? Borrow a little happiness?

She made an affair sound so fresh and pure.

Fred's face darkened.

"Celeste, do you really have to make things ugly for everyone?"

He folded his hands on the table, taking on the airs of a chairman.

"Paige is just a diversion. I've told you, the position of Mrs. Harding is yours forever."

"Over a joke, you'd throw away everything we've built over all these years?"

Built.

That word coming out of his mouth was almost too much to bear.

I thought of our second year in business, when we couldn't even make rent on the office.

Fred and I, sitting in a rented apartment with no heat, staying up all night reworking the business plan.

Back then he'd wrapped his down jacket around me.

"Cel, once the company's big, it's all yours to run. I'll work for you."

His smile then had been so sincere. Sincere enough to make me believe it would last forever.

And now he sat on the empire I'd built, kept my best friend on the side, and thought he was doing me a favor.

"I won't make a scene." I stood, planting both hands on the table, looking down at him. "If you think she can do it, then let her."

I turned and walked toward the conference room door, pausing as my hand closed around the handle.

"But Fred, do you really think Paige can pull off Everline's due diligence?"

I turned my head, watching Paige's face freeze in an instant.

"She can't even read a financial statement."

Three days later, the Everline Group due-diligence meeting.

The air in the conference room was so heavy it was hard to breathe.

Everline's investor representative sat at the far end of the long table, a voice recorder lying beside him.

Paige stood in front of the projector, a fine layer of sweat already beading on her forehead.

"As for our revenue growth in the third quarter, we relied mainly on... on expanding into new channels."

She stumbled through the words on the slides, her eyes darting again and again toward Fred.

The man across from her stopped what he was doing and flipped open the file in front of him.

"Miss Sullivan, I asked about the sequential drop in your core profit margin, not for you to read me a press release."

He looked up, his gaze sharp on Paige.

"There are three clear gaps in the financial model your company submitted. Can you explain them?"

Paige lost her composure completely. She looked to Fred for help.

Fred cleared his throat and tried to smooth it over.

"Paige is just short on experience. The overall direction is sound."

He made the claim without a trace of hesitation, then turned to me.

"Celeste, pull up the core figures for the third quarter and walk them through it."

His tone was the same habitual one he always used to give orders.

As if I were still the dutiful wife ready at any moment to cover his losses and clean up his messes.

I sat in my chair without so much as reaching to open the file in front of me.

"Mr. Harding, haven't you got one thing confused?" I picked up my coffee and took a small sip.

"You handed the Everline account over to Miss Sullivan in full three days ago."

Fred's expression shifted. He lowered his voice and warned me.

"Celeste, this is no time to throw a tantrum. Do you not know how important this funding is to the company?"

"I do." I set the cup down.

"But I'm under no obligation to wipe the backside of someone who can't even read a report."

Right on cue, the man across the table closed his file.

"Mr. Harding, it seems your company has serious problems with internal management."

He stood.

"Everline's money isn't here for you people to play house with. If the core team can't reach a consensus, there's no point continuing this due diligence."

Fred finally panicked. He shot to his feet.

"Please, give me one more day. I'll submit the complete data."

He turned and fixed his eyes on me, a trace of pleading and anger in them.

"Celeste, I'm begging you, just hand over the data first. Once we're home, hit me, scream at me, whatever you want."

I looked at that false face of his and felt nothing but disgust.

"Sorry, Mr. Harding. My team has already completed its own independent accounting."

I stood and picked up my handbag.

"From now on, this funding round has nothing to do with you."

At ten o'clock, right after my shower, Fred called.

The background on his end was loud, some kind of drinking party.

"Celeste, what exactly are you trying to do?" His voice was strained around a huge amount of anger.

"Separate accounting? What gives you the right to take the core team? Do you even know the company's cash flow is about to snap?"

I toweled my dripping hair, put him on speaker, and set the phone on the table.

"What gives me the right is the risk-isolation clause in the performance agreement," I answered calmly.

There was a beat of silence, then Fred's disbelieving laugh.

"You've been guarding against me all along?"

There was actually a note of betrayed self-pity in his voice.

"I thought you were just throwing a tantrum. I never imagined you were plotting against me. Celeste, five years of marriage, and you're really going to be this ruthless?"

Listening to him twist it around on me, I didn't even have the strength to be angry.

"Fred, you're the one who crossed the line first."

"I told you, that was an accident!" His volume shot up, trying to overpower me with sheer noise. "As long as you cancel the separate accounting now and bring the team back, I can make Paige resign immediately."

He paused, and his tone softened into a kind of condescending tenderness.

"Celeste, the company can't do without you. Let's turn this page and live our lives properly, all right?"

I looked at myself in the mirror.

No tears in my eyes. Just clarity.

"There's no turning this page," I said quietly.

"What do you mean?" Fred's breathing quickened.

"If you insist on submitting the separate accounting report to the board tomorrow, I'll use my veto as chairman."

He finally tore off the warm mask.

"Celeste, don't push me. Even if you take the team, as long as I don't sign, you won't walk away with a single cent."

I listened to his threat and let a mocking curve pull at my mouth.

"Fred, do you still remember those ninety-nine loyalty tests?"

The line went blank, like he couldn't keep up with me.

"You thought those screenshots were hilarious, didn't you? Thought I was some fool you two were toying with in the palm of your hand."

"Those bedroom photos Paige sent you? I've already packaged them and forwarded them to Everline's compliance department."

On the other end, Fred's breath caught.

"Everline's investment terms have a clear moral-risk veto clause."

"Fred, take your true love and go bankrupt together."

There was the sound of a glass shattering on his end.

"Celeste! You've lost your mind."

I pressed end and dropped his number into the blocked list on my way out.