NOTE: Where you see "...." inserted within a sentence or between sentences, the author has removed certain words from the excerpt that might give away key parts of the story.

July 12, 1907

       2:30 in the afternoon

            By this time tomorrow, Cinnamon and I will be living in view of this grand Madison home rather than within these walls. Jonathon has been sending men from the mill to help us move our things into the cottage. Although the houses are separated by only two blocks, the lives broken from one place to another might as well be marked by miles. How tragic that the fabric of a family should be shredded in such a manner. Perhaps one day he will look back upon this lamentable failure the same way I do, acknowledging this as the loss that dismembered our future. Then again, grasping the full measure of something lost requires, first, a belief that something existed. I must have been alone in that faith from the beginning.

            Waiting for anger to rise up from within me, or perhaps rage outwardly against the awful events that have transpired since shortly after Amelia left us, all I am able to feel instead is a sadness so thick and deep that my body is bent from the weight. I haven’t the faintest idea how I will move on from here, but I have been presented with no alternative, so move on I must.

            Mimi rested her pen across the open pages of her journal, and then relaxed her head and shoulders against the high back of her library desk chair. Looking around the room, her sadness widened as she recalled promising Emanuel Smith that her family and friends would forever learn and laugh amidst his honored craftsmanship. Jonathon did agree to let her take this desk to the cottage, along with her chair and Amelia’s. But the rest of the library pieces would be left in what she was certain would become a hollow remnant of what should have been.

            “Promises,” she whispered aloud. “They do seem to be at the root of our difficulties.” Her eyes came to focus on one of the round reading tables to her left where, neatly positioned in the center was an unfolded, handwritten letter. On top of the letter was the diamond heart pendant and chain that Jonathon had given her for Valentine’s Day after Cinnamon was born. Engraved on the back of the heart were the words, “I love you, from Jonathon.”

            “So much for promises.”

Her voice became more than a whisper as she recalled the letter’s delivery that afternoon more than a year earlier while she and Amelia were preparing for the baby’s baptism. After signing the receipt, a wave of suspicion had rushed over her, carried by the hint of perfume rising from the letter’s seal. If she had pursued her instincts when Amelia was still alive, would the outcome have been altered? Most likely not, because Jonathon’s domineering manner only grew more daunting with the addition of a woman named Sophie…

…“Perhaps a bit of separation will help us heal.”

She thought those had been his words, and in the recollection, she could not imagine how she’d escaped that moment without throwing something at him or otherwise acting out her rage. Still, she did not reveal to him her knowledge of Sophie. She never cried, begged, or spoke of injustice. Nor did she attempt to share with him the unbearable anguish at the other end of betrayal or within the fragile binding of a broken heart. Even had she been warned, she could not have prepared herself for the unrelenting sense of loss and humiliation that greeted her each morning and shadowed her throughout each day. She tried not to imagine Jonathon’s arms around Sophie, or to dwell on his unbelievable absence of guilt, not to mention Sophie’s confident takeover of Mimi’s life. Disappointment about the future seemed to wrap around every activity, and Mimi found herself catching her breath whenever her thoughts touched upon her aborted dreams. She was least prepared for the physical aching deep within her body, or the throbbing pulse at her temples as she felt the desecrated love for her husband unravel throughout her soul…

… Hearing the workmen’s voices as they maneuvered the nursery furniture down the stairs, she knew they would be coming for the desk and chairs before long. Leaning forward, she lifted her pen with her right hand and slowly moved the palm of her left hand back and forth across the desktop’s smooth surface. The cool remnants of the oil she’d used as a cleaning polish made the leather feel like a soft piece of fabric against her skin, the sensation somehow having a mild sedative effect upon her. Looking at the empty chair facing her, she pictured Amelia’s spirit sitting there, serious and equally sad, but determined to see Mimi come through this with dignity. Once again, she began to write.

               My marriage has been over for a long while. In truth, I am not convinced now that there ever was a marriage, other than the union’s obvious technicalities. Romantic love was the first element to disappear, and ultimately the least important. Trust was the last holdout, the consummate pillar. Once that had been shattered into pitiful grains of dust, answers appeared to questions yet unasked—and by then, there was nowhere for either of us to go but away.

            Placing the journal and pen in her skirt pocket, she walked out of the library and into the parlor, where she poured herself a glass of sherry. Then, with her glass in one hand and the bottle in the other, she wandered slowly from room to room, reliving the laughter, embracing the visions, and saying goodbye, unaware of the prophetic nature of what she had just written.