Chapter 1: Margaret's Prophesy
“Love isn’t a safety net, Vera. It’s a tightrope. And Dominic? He’s got a habit of cutting the wire.”
“Some men collect broken hearts like kids collect baseball cards.”
The words were the kind of thing her mother would say—had said, in fact, over and over until the eve of her wedding. At the time, Vera had dismissed it as her mother’s usual boomer cynicism, one last attempt to derail her happiness.
But she didn’t realize until recently that Mom was a savant for cutting through the bullshit with a rusty blade. She could still see that knowing look, still hear the urgency in her voice as she tried one last time to make her daughter see reason.
It was thirteen years ago. Vera, in the throes of pre-wedding chaos, hunched over the kitchen table like a general waging war on a battlefield of paper seating tents.
Aunt Jane can’t sit near Uncle Pete’s floozy. Cousin Jim is a wildcard after three whiskeys — keep him away from the kid’s table. Why the hell did we agree to an open bar, anyway? Good, now Dominic’s college roommate is always one dirty joke away from a lawsuit — keep him far away from Betty. Does Betty have a plus one?
Her fingers danced over the paper slips, snatching and reshuffling like a caffeinated blackjack dealer.
The light above her buzzed and flickered, as persistent as a cicada. After the fourth hour, its glare had turned the seating plans into a geometric forest, each name and number burning bright as a neon sign. She squinted, feeling like she was staring at the sun through a magnifying glass. The longer she looked, the more the letters danced and rearranged themselves. But she had to get it done — had to make this day perfect in every way.
For Dominic.
She heard footsteps creaking on the old linoleum, and her stomach clenched. She knew what was coming. A mug of tea appeared at the edge of her vision. Glancing up, she caught sight of her mother’s hand, dappled with liver spots, shake violently as she made to set the mug down.
It hit the table like a judge’s gavel calling the courtroom to order. Amber liquid sloshed violently and a tsunami of chamomile crested the rim. Vera’s heart lurched up into her throat, time stretching like taffy, the tea arcing through the air in a deadly parabola.
“No!” Her hand shot out, fingers splayed as if she could telekinetically stop the impending disaster.
By some miracle — or curse, Vera later wasn’t sure which — the tea missed the seating chart by a hair’s breadth.
She looked up at her mother, expecting… what? An apology? Concern?
But Margaret Lawson stood as impassive as a granite cliff. There was no flicker of remorse, no acknowledgment of the near-catastrophe. Just that steady, knowing gaze that bored right through Vera’s fragile nerves.
“Jesus, Mom,” Vera hissed through clenched teeth. “Careful!”
“Honey,” she said, ignoring her as she lowered herself into a chair. “I know you’re tired of hearing this, but — “
“Then I don’t want to hear it,” Vera said, dabbing at the puddle of tea. “I know what you’re going to say. We’ve been over this a hundred times.”
“And we’ll go over it a hundred more if that’s what it takes. Are you absolutely sure about Dominic?”
Vera stopped mid-dab. She forced herself to look up into her mother’s cloudy eyes. “Yes, Mom. For the last time, yes.”
Margaret’s lips pressed into a thin line. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. Finally, she said, “Some men — “
“ — collect broken hearts like kids collect baseball cards. Yeah, yeah. I know, Mom. You’ve said that a million times,” she said, looking away. She could still feel her mother’s gaze, steady and unrelenting as a lighthouse beam.
Margaret leaned forward, elbows on the table. A lock of hair fell across her face, and she absently tucked it behind her ear. A tissue materialized from her cardigan sleeve like black magic. With a distracted wave, as if completing an arcane ritual, she dabbed at the spilled tea, her eyes never leaving her daughter’s face.
“Because it’s true.”
“You mean, like Dad was?”
“No. Your father was a saint. I’m talking about Dominic and other men like him. Two failed marriages, all those rumors Betty’s been telling me down at the clinic…”
“They’re just rumors,” Vera snapped. “And people change. Dominic’s different now.”
“Different?” Her mother laughed. “Honey, men like that don’t change. They just get better at hiding it.”
Vera’s palm crashed onto the table. The paper place tags jumped like startled cats. “For Christ’s sake, Mom! Now? The night before? Really? Can’t you just be happy for me?”
“I want to be, sweetie. God knows I do. But I’ve seen this story before, and it doesn’t have a happy ending.”
“This isn’t your story; it’s mine. I love him. Why can’t that be enough for you? It should be.”
Her mother was quiet for a long moment. When she spoke, her voice was barely louder than the humming of the lights. “Because love isn’t a safety net, Vera. It’s a tightrope. And Dominic? He’s got a habit of cutting the wire.”
The silence that followed hung between them like a noose, tightening with each tick of the kitchen clock. Finally, her mother pushed herself up from the table, her knees popping like gunshots.
After she shuffled out, the mug of tea clutched in her fingers, Vera let out a frustrated sigh. She snatched up her checklist, determined to finish the tasks at hand before it got too late, but the neat rows of to-dos refused to come into focus. With an exasperated grunt, she tossed the paper onto the table.
The checklist slid across the smooth surface, coming to rest precisely where her mother’s mug had been. The corner of the page adhered to the perfect ring of tea Margaret hadn’t bothered to wipe up. She stared at it, transfixed.
It was careless, that spill — just like her mother’s words, splashed out without a thought for the damage they might do to her daughter. She couldn’t look away from the stain, that imperfect tan circle mocking her quest for the perfect day.
It wasn’t just a stain. It was everything her mother represented: the doubt, the warnings, the casual disregard for Vera’s choices. That ring was an omen of chaos creeping in at the edges of her carefully ordered world.
As she stared, the ring grew to seep deeper into the fibers of her checklist and spread towards her meticulous seating chart. It was irrational, impossible, but for a moment she could have sworn she saw those carefully printed names begin to turn and run, as if escaping the mug ring that was dissolving all her plans.
She blinked, and the illusion was gone. But the tea stain remained. No matter how hard she tried, how carefully she planned, there would always be something — or someone — ready to leave their mark, wanted or not.
And at this moment, she felt a dread settle in her gut for the first time. It was much like that feeling she’d had as a kid, right before the roller coaster plummeted down its first big hill.
Only this time, there was no safety bar to hold on to.
In the end, it didn’t matter. Vera, drunk on love and no small measure of forced optimism, walked down that aisle with her head held high, certain she was proving her mother wrong with every step.
Time’s a funny thing in marriage. It stretches like taffy on good days, snaps like a rubber band on bad ones. For Vera, thirteen years slipped by in a blur. Hallmark moments and promises, each one a layer of shellac over the rot beneath.
She still remembered that day in June, walking down the aisle past the gardenias her mother hated (“They smell like death,” Mom had said, but what did she know?). Dominic had smiled his movie-star smile. If she’d known then what she knew now, she’d have turned tail and run right out of that church and clear across the state line.
But that’s the thing about hindsight — it’s got 20/20 vision and a mean streak a mile wide.
Thirteen years, two miscarriages, and one slut from accounting later, Vera found herself bombing down Route 62 in her beat-up Subaru, the summer wind whipping through her hair like it was trying to pull the memories right out of her head. Her left arm dangled out the window, thumb absently spinning that golden band. Once upon a time, it had felt like a crown. Now it was just dead weight, dragging her down into the depths of a life she no longer recognized.
The sad truth was, her mother had been right all along. But Mom wasn’t around to say “I told you so” anymore. Cancer saw to that, stealing her away with the same swift brutality that Dominic’s infidelity had stolen Vera’s happily-ever-after.
As the faded yellow lines of Route 62 stretched out before her, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she wasn’t just leaving her old life behind. She was racing towards something, too. Something that had been waiting for her all along, patient as death, in the old house on Goodnow Road.
As she spun the ring, more memories flooded back. Those of the handsome, floppy-haired Dominic of their early years. His crooked smile charming her over shitty beer in their rattrap of an apartment. Their first home purchase: a fixer-upper that they painted together, ending up with more paint on each other than the walls. The promotion Dominic landed in his third year, and celebrating with champagne on their tiny balcony. His unwavering support when she switched careers in year six, spending late nights helping her study. And her mother’s tight smile and knowing eyes that held a silent “mark my words” that Vera continuously ignored.
But then, like a summer storm, the darker memories rolled in. Dominic’s practiced apologies — a new one every week — echoed in her mind: “You know I hate leaving you, babe. This deal is important for us. I promise.”
I promise.
Same excuses. Same lies. Every damn time.
The geography of his absences formed a map she couldn’t quite decipher. Unexpected cities on credit statements and misplaced hotel receipts that didn’t match the places he’d claimed to visit. New York when he was supposed to be in Boston. Las Vegas instead of Los Angeles. And goddamned St. Croix instead of fucking Des Moines. Each discrepancy chipped away at her trust and left her with that ball of dread growing in her guts.
Each time he left, the house grew larger, emptier. The vastness echoed her doubts, each room a question mark. Was this what she’d signed up for? A life of empty rooms, cold sheets, and lies?
Then that night that became etched in her memory like acid on glass. Dominic had stumbled in late, heralding his arrival with the jangle of keys and the thud of his suitcase on the floor. She had lain awake, listening to his shuffling steps, feeling that a stranger had broken into her home.
When he’d slipped into bed, his body had felt foreign next to hers — too close, yet impossibly distant. He whispered, “Hey, babe.” The words hung in the air, stale and hollow. She’d feigned sleep, but her heart hammered against her ribs.
The next morning, he was a whirlwind of activity, muttering something about a last-minute golf trip with clients. He threw a few polo shirts and khakis into a weekend bag with brusque and impatient moves, as if he couldn’t wait to get out of there. Then, without so much as a backward glance, he’d upended his suitcase over the laundry basket in the corner of their bedroom.
“Can you take care of that, hon? I have to fly to Denver on Tuesday,” he’d called over his shoulder, already halfway out the door. “Thanks, you’re the best. Be back in a few!”
And just like that, he was gone again, leaving behind a small mountain of fabric and suspicions.
For days, the hamper sat there, untouched. The clothes remained unwashed, the pockets unsearched. If she didn’t wash them, she wouldn’t have to confront the truth she suspected lurked in their folds. If the shirts stayed there, perhaps the doubts would remain just that — doubts. It was easier, she’d convinced herself, to let sleeping dogs and dirty laundry lie.
But when this trip stretched out longer than he said, Vera finally broke. The ball of dread had been gnawing at her for too long, like a relentless toothache. One night, after a few too many glasses of wine, she went upstairs with all the gusto of a tornado touching down and upended the laundry hamper.
She rifled through the clothes with movements growing more frantic. The scent hit her first: a cloying days-old floral perfume, nothing like her own citrusy brand. Then came the damnable visual evidence: a scarlet letter of lipstick smeared on his collar.
But the real kicker came when she shoved her hand into the front pocket of his khakis. Her fingers closed around a folded piece of paper, and as she pulled it out, it unfolded like a magician’s endless handkerchief trick.
A CVS receipt. One of those ridiculously long ones that could double as a scarf in a pinch. Amid the ExtraBucks and coupons for eyeliner, one item stood out. Trojan condoms.
As she stared at it, questions bubbled up like air pockets in quicksand. Why would he be so careless? It wasn’t just this receipt — it was everything. The credit card statements with cities he’d never mentioned visiting. The poorly constructed lies about late nights at the office. Did he think she was an idiot?
Or worse — did he just not care enough to cover his tracks properly?
She could picture him now, bald spot gleaming under the harsh lights of some far off CVS, grabbing the condoms off the shelf with the casual air of a man just out for a pack of gum. Did he whistle through his teeth as he waited in line, the way he always did when he was nervous? Did he flash that aw-shucks grin at the cashier, as if buying protection for his infidelity was the most natural thing in the world?
She glanced at the hamper as it sat there, open, like Pandora’s box, all the lies and deceit now laid bare, except one. And she was terrified to think what that last thing was. That made the knot in her core change. It was still anger, yes, but something else too. Something that felt an awful lot like the first taste of freedom.
A hysterical laugh bubbled up in her throat and threatened to erupt into a scream. How many times had she swallowed his excuses, digested his lies until they became a part of her?
Too many.
No more, a voice whispered in her head. It sounded like her mother’s, tinged with that knowing sadness Vera always hated.
I’ve spent so long bending to his will, I’ve forgotten my own shape.
Her fingers twitched, itching to grab something, anything. To throw, to break, to make the outside of this house match the shattered remnants of the life she’d built inside it — but that wasn’t her. She wouldn’t let Dominic turn her into that woman.
Instead, she moved with the eerie calm of someone walking through a graveyard. Clothes in a bag, toothbrush, photo album. Her grandmother’s gift, untainted by Dominic’s image.
With each item she packed, another thread snapped in the fraying rope that had kept her tethered to this farce of a marriage. She didn’t wait for the bastard to return home. She finished packing the essentials, left a Dear John on the counter with the receipt, and walked out. She couldn’t bear to face him, to hear more lies. Instead, she pointed her car towards her hometown of Millbrook.
Her mother had passed away just months before, cancer stealing her away with a swiftness that left Vera reeling. The irony didn't escape her. Margaret, who had always seen through Dominic’s facade, died never knowing she had been right all along. It was as if the universe had a fucked up, twisted sense of humor, taking away the one person who could have said “I told you so” with both sadness and vindication. The silence left in her mother’s wake held unspoken validations and the weight of missed opportunities for reconciliation.
The loss was a hollowness that echoed with every beat of her heart. Her absence expanded to fill every corner of her life, and it grew larger with each passing day. And now, standing at the finish line of her imploded marriage, she longed for her mother’s folksy wisdom more than ever. The thought twisted in her stomach, a bittersweet cocktail of grief and regret.
She’d inherited the old homestead on Goodnow Road which sat empty since dad passed and Margaret, kicking and screaming, got dumped into assisted living. Now the place seemed like a lifeline — a place to heal, to renovate, to rebuild her life brick by brick.
As the miles rolled by, Vera’s grief morphed into a white-hot fury. Dominic hadn’t just betrayed her; he’d stolen precious time with her mother. Those wasted years spent defending a man who didn’t deserve it could have overflowed with laughter. If Dominic had been the man she thought he was — the man she desperately wanted him to be — her mother would have known her daughter had found happiness, that her warnings had been unfounded.
Instead, she had spent thirteen years building a wall between herself and the one person who had always seen the truth. Thirteen years of strained holiday dinners, of clipped phone conversations, of unspoken resentment rotting beneath forced politeness. Thirteen years that could have been filled with warmth, with love, with the kind of bond that only exists between a mother and daughter who truly understands each other.
And now? Now her mother was gone, taken by cancer before she could see her wisdom vindicated. Before Vera could say, “You were right, Mom. I’m sorry.” Before they could rebuild what Dominic’s presence eroded away.
The unfairness of it all hit Vera like a blow to the back of the neck. Her jaw clenched tight enough to crack walnuts, and the muscles in her neck corded like steel cables. With a sudden ferocity that surprised even her, she ripped the ring from her finger. For a heartbeat, she held it in her palm and felt its weight. It wasn’t just the physical heft of the puny thing. This little band had the gravitational pull of all the broken promises, all the lonely days of one spectacularly fucked-up marriage.
Then, with a motion as decisive as an executioner’s axe-fall, she flicked it out the window. It arced through the air, catching the sunlight like some pissed-off fairy’s wand. It spun end over end, a tiny comet of failed love and broken vows.
In her mind’s eye, she saw it bounce once, twice, then roll to the edge of the road where it sparkled one last time before the weeds gobbled it up.
Good riddance.
Thirteen years, two miscarriages, and one slut from accounting later, that ring had felt more like a garrote than a symbol of eternal love.
She didn’t glance in the rear-view mirror. Couldn’t. Deep in her gut, in that place where instinct lives and rationality fears to tread, she knew that if she did, she’d see her mother standing there. Not the cancer-ravaged shell, but the Mom in her prime, nodding with that bittersweet I-told-you-so look that had driven Vera crazy for years.
Instead, she mashed the accelerator and felt the car surge forward like it too was just as eager to leave the past behind. With each mile marker that blurred past, she felt the knot unravel a bit more. It wasn’t happiness — not yet. But it was something close to hope, a sensation so foreign she almost didn’t recognize it. As the car ate up the miles, she could almost hear the old life crumbling in her rearview mirror. And damned if that sound didn’t sound an awful lot like freedom.
Ahead lay Millbrook, and the empty house on Goodnow Road. The thought of returning to a home devoid of her mother’s presence was enough to send a shiver down her spine, like someone had just walked over her grave. Or maybe it was just the ghosts of her past lining up to welcome her home.
As her car lurched off the main road onto the winding driveway, the trees seemed to lean in. For a moment, she could have sworn they were trying to grab her, to pull her back into the world she’d left behind. But that was crazy talk. Wasn’t it?
She killed the engine. Sudden silence fell like a heavy blanket, muffling everything but her heartbeat. The air felt different here. Thicker. As if memories had coalesced into something she could almost touch.
Drawing in a breath that felt like her first in years, she reached for the door handle. Her fingers trembled, and for a second she wondered if she’d lost her nerve. But then she felt a familiar stubbornness rise in her chest. It wasn’t exactly courage, but it would do.
When she stepped out of the car, the gravel crunched under her feet like old bones. She squared her shoulders and marched towards the front door. As she walked, she held the key in her palm and felt its weight. This weight felt different — electric, almost. Like holding a lightning bolt. But as her fingers curled around it, something shifted. The metal warmed, its edges softening against her skin.
She stood with one foot on the porch, the other still reaching for the ground as the key pulsed in her hand, like a tiny heartbeat of brass. As she slid it into the lock, the wind picked up, rustling through the old maples. Their leaves shushed and swayed, and in their song, she could almost hear her mother’s voice:
Well, look who finally made it.
She turned the key. The lock yielded with a click that echoed through her bones, shaking loose something she couldn’t quite name—not yet.
Whatever ghosts awaited her here, at least they’d be honest ones. And honesty, Vera had learned the hard way, was worth its weight in gold — or, at the very least, in discarded wedding rings.
I loved this story, Andrew! You really did a great job with this. I am amazed at your writing. You painted a very vivid picture for us. I will have to read this again, maybe three times. 😊 I love it. Are you going to put the rest behind a subscription? How much is it to subscribe? Thank you, Andrew! I love all of your writing.😊
Dude! You've outdone yourself with this little gem. Once I read the first word I couldn't stop until I read the last. Even then, I had to go back and reread one of your brilliantly constructed adventures in imagery just to admire your literary prowess. Bravo, man. I'm sharing and recommending this, and, by the way, congratulations on your first Substack article.