Chapter 2 - The Math of Regret
The number hit Ryan like a physical weight, crushing the air straight out of his lungs.
His mind ran through the financial and personal timeline with cold, mechanical speed. Grace had packed her bags and moved out of their North Shore townhouse in October three years ago. The final decree was entered in December.
Three years old meant she was already carrying them during those brutal, silent final months of their marriage.
The memories he had spent three years burying suddenly surged back with terrifying clarity.
He remembered Grace sitting at the kitchen island at 10:00 PM, pale, exhausted, her hands wrapped around a mug of warm water, waiting for him to return from the office. He remembered how she would fall asleep in her clothes before dinner was even served. He remembered her crying silently in the bathroom on a Tuesday morning, and how he had dismissed it as "unnecessary emotional stress" brought on by her inability to adapt to his grueling work schedule.
“Ryan, please stay home this weekend,” her voice echoed from the past, clear as a bell. “Please. Just one weekend. I need you here.”
“I have the Merrill merger, Grace,” he had replied, pulling his silk tie tight in front of the mirror, not even turning around to look at her. “We’ll talk when I get back from Frankfurt.”
There was always another meeting. Another flight to London. Another six-figure client dinner. Another excuse.
When Grace began retreating into herself, he had blamed her for being distant. When his mother, Eleanor Vance, made sharp, passive-aggressive comments at family dinners about Grace’s modest background and lack of corporate pedigree, Grace had begged him to stand up for her. Ryan had told her she was being paranoid and thin-skinned.
When she finally walked out, leaving her wedding ring on the marble kitchen counter, Ryan had convinced himself that she was simply ungrateful, that their marriage had failed because Grace lacked the resilience required to be the wife of a successful man.
Now, standing beneath a leaking bus shelter in the pouring rain, staring at three three-year-old children in matching red raincoats, Ryan realized with a sickening, hollow certainty that he had understood nothing at all.
"Grace..." Ryan took another step closer, his expensive leather dress shoes soaking through with muddy rainwater. "Are they mine?"
Grace froze.
The rain hammered against the metal roof above them with a deafening, rhythmic roar. The little girl on her left reached up, wrapping her tiny fingers around Grace’s wet thumb. Grace looked down at the child, her expression softening with an immense, protective tenderness, before turning her gaze away from Ryan entirely.
She said nothing.
That silence was a blade that severed something deep inside Ryan’s chest. It was far more destructive than a shouted affirmation or a bitter accusation.
The heavy air brakes of a city bus hissed loudly at the curb. The doors folded open, releasing a blast of warm, diesel-scented air.
Grace immediately scooped the smallest girl into her arms and ushered the other two toward the folding steps.
"I have to go, Ryan," she said, her voice shaking with an edge he had never heard in her before.
"Grace, wait! Stop!" Ryan reached out, his hand catching the damp sleeve of her coat.
Grace spun around, her eyes flashing with a sudden, fierce, terrifying fury that made him drop his hand instantly.
"I’ve already lost too much because of you and your family, Ryan!" she hissed, her voice barely carrying over the idle of the engine. "Do not touch me."
She stepped onto the bus. The little boy climbed aboard last, his small sneakers squeaking against the wet rubber steps. Before the glass doors slid shut, the boy turned around one last time.
Those gray-blue eyes stared directly into Ryan's.
The doors hissed closed. The bus pulled away from the curb, its red taillights smearing against the dark, rainy avenue.
In Ryan’s pocket, his phone began to vibrate violently.
He pulled it out with numb fingers. The screen illuminated the dark shelter with Amelia’s name.
Where are you, Ryan? My father and the board members are already at the table. Everyone is waiting.
Ryan looked down at his left hand. He pulled out the velvet box, flipping it open. The three-carat diamond caught the dull, gray reflection of the streetlamp overhead.
An hour ago, that diamond represented the logical, pristine next step of his life.
Now, looking down the empty avenue where the bus had vanished, the ring looked like a piece of cheap glass.
May you like
The proposal was dead. Amelia was dead. Vance Capital was dead.
Ryan turned on his heel, sprinted three blocks back to his parked car, ignited the engine, and pulled out into the blinding rain to follow the red taillights of the line 42 bus.
