My Husband Pushed Me Off the Balcony

Tate came on a Tuesday morning when the light in my apartment was still gray and soft. I heard the knock and knew it was him before I opened the door. He had a particular rhythm. Hesitant. Guilty.

I let him in because I was curious what shape his conscience had taken.

He stood in my empty living room and looked at the windows. Not at me. "I'm not here to apologize."

"Good." I crossed my arms. My wrist brace caught on my sleeve. "I don't want your apology."

"I know." He pulled out his phone. Tapped the screen. Held it out. "Sasha's been using Donovan's accounts. Wire transfers. Unauthorized purchases. This is from the internal audit."

I looked at the screen. Numbers. Dates. A pattern of hemorrhaging that would have been funny if it hadn't been so predictable.

"Why are you showing me this?"

"Because you should know what's happening." He put the phone away. "The biotech deal collapsed. Two hundred million gone. The board is turning on him. Stone Industries won't survive the quarter."

I waited.

"That's it," he said. "That's all I came to say."

"Okay."

He nodded. He turned toward the door, then stopped. "Kehlani—"

"Not today, Tate."

His shoulders sagged. He left without another word.

I stood in the middle of my empty living room and pressed my thumb and forefinger together until the pressure turned sharp. Then I let go.

I went back to the studio.

---

Donovan started appearing in places I used to go.

I heard about it from the gallery owner in Chelsea who called to warn me. "He was here this morning. Asking questions. I told him I hadn't seen you."

"Thank you."

"Kehlani, he looked—" She paused. "He looked bad."

I said nothing.

"Just be careful," she said, and hung up.

The next day, flowers arrived at my apartment building. White peonies. Hundreds of them. The doorman called up, confused. "Ma'am, there's a delivery. They say it's for you. Should I—"

"Send them back."

"All of them?"

"All of them."

They came again on Thursday. And Saturday. I stopped answering the doorman's calls. He learned to refuse them at the desk.

Remington told me later that Donovan had hired someone to find me. That he'd been sitting in his car outside my building at odd hours. That he looked like a man who had forgotten how to sleep.

I didn't ask how Remington knew. I didn't need to.

"Do you want me to make it stop?" Remington asked. We were in my studio. He was reading on the floor again. I was working on *Ashes and Light, No. 4.*

"No," I said. "Let him sit."

Remington turned a page. "Okay."

I added a slash of gold to the canvas. It looked like a crack in something dark. Like light forcing its way through.

"He can sit as long as he wants," I said quietly. "I'm not coming out."

---

Donovan sat in his office on the forty-second floor and stared at the photograph.

Kehlani. First year. Paint on her forearm. Laughing.

He had taken the photo without her knowing. She'd been working on something in their apartment—back when it was still *their* apartment—and he'd stood in the doorway watching her. She had looked so alive. So bright.

He couldn't remember now what she had been laughing at.

The office was quieter than it used to be. Half the staff was gone. The phones didn't ring as much. Marcus had stopped returning his calls.

The door opened without a knock.

Tate walked in. He looked tired. Older.

"We need to talk," Tate said.

Donovan set the photograph down. "If this is about the severance packages—"

"It's about Kehlani."

Donovan's jaw tightened. "She's not your concern."

"She was bleeding on a balcony while you drove away." Tate's voice was flat. "That made her my concern."

"I was handling—"

"You were handling Sasha." Tate stepped closer. "You left your wife to die so you could comfort your mistress. And now you're sitting here sending her flowers like that fixes it."

"Get out."

"She's not coming back, Donovan." Tate didn't move. "And you need to ask yourself whether you want her back because you love her, or because you can't stand that she left."

Donovan stood. His hands were shaking. "Get. Out."

Tate looked at him for a long moment. Then he turned and walked out.

The door clicked shut.

Donovan sat back down. He picked up the photograph. He stared at Kehlani's face until the light outside went orange, then gray, then black.

He still couldn't remember what she'd been laughing at.

But he remembered, suddenly and with perfect clarity, that he had never asked.