All Chapters of Once Discarded, Now Desired : Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

The thing about wars was that they ended.Nora had spent so long inside this one that she had forgotten what the ending would feel like. She had imagined it many times in the quiet moments between the threats and the courtrooms and the mysterious messages and the darkness. She had imagined relief. She had imagined the particular exhale of someone who had been holding their breath for a very long time finally being allowed to breathe.She had not imagined it feeling like this.Like silence.Like sitting at a small kitchen table with cold eggs and a napkin with three figures on it while the city went about its morning and the legal machinery that had been grinding toward her family for weeks simply stopped.She had not imagined it feeling ordinary.Ethan arrived twenty minutes after his message.He knocked. She had given him the door code two days ago for security reasons and he had not used it without knocking first. She had noticed that. The careful way he moved in the spaces around h

The second Saturday was different from the first.Not worse. Just different in the way that second times are always different from first times because the novelty has settled and what remains is something more honest and therefore more complicated.Lily wanted the same park. Same climbing structure. Same coffee cart. Same formation walking there with both hands held. He was a creature of decided preferences and once he decided something was correct he saw no reason to vary it.Nora was fine with all of that.What she had not anticipated was running into Marcus.He was at the coffee cart when they arrived. Standing in the queue with his hands in his pockets looking like a man spending a Saturday morning the way uncomplicated people spent Saturday mornings. He turned when he heard Lily's voice announcing the arrival of the brown drink place and his eyes moved from Lily to Nora to Ethan and then back to Nora with the particular expression of someone absorbing a picture they had suspected

The federal investigation moved faster than Henderson had predicted.Diana's lawyers had spent three weeks attempting to negotiate a settlement that would keep their client out of a courtroom. Henderson had watched the process with the patience of someone who knew exactly how it would end and had simply waited for the other side to reach the same conclusion.They reached it on a Tuesday morning.No settlement. Diana Blackwood was going to trial.Henderson called Ethan first and Ethan called Nora and she sat at her desk at work and listened to him explain what it meant and felt the particular weight of something that had been suspended finally beginning its descent."When?" she asked."Eight weeks," Ethan said. "The prosecution has been building the case since the fraud documentation was submitted. Combined with Patricia's testimony and Camille's evidence they are confident.""Will she go to prison?"A pause. "Henderson thinks a custodial sentence is possible. The fraud spans fifteen y

Friday arrived with sunshine.Lily woke up at six fifteen and announced that it was the day of the performance and that he needed his hair done in a specific way that he could not fully describe but would know when he saw it.Nora did her best.He assessed the result in the bathroom mirror with the seriousness of a professional preparing for something significant."It is acceptable," he said finally.She did not tell him she had been holding her breath.He ate his breakfast with focused efficiency and asked twice whether Ethan was coming and was satisfied both times with the confirmation that yes Ethan was coming and yes he would be there before ten and yes he knew where the daycare was.At nine forty five Lily was in his costume which was a brown tunic with green fabric leaves attached to the shoulders that Mrs Adler's team had constructed with impressive commitment to the concept.He stood very still while Nora adjusted the leaves."How do I look?" he asked."Like a very important t

Saturday arrived the way important things arrived.Quietly. Without announcement. Just then when she woke up, ordinary light came through the curtains and Lily's voice from the next room asking if today was the day Sophie was coming.It was.Sophie arrived at five with a bag that contained enough activities for three children and the energy of someone who had been looking forward to this evening almost as much as Nora had been dreading and anticipating it in equal measure.She stood in the hallway and looked Nora up and down with the comprehensive assessment of someone who had known her for twelve years."You look beautiful," she said."I look nervous," Nora said."You look beautifully nervous," Sophie said. "It looks good."Lily appeared between them. He looked at Nora's dress. He looked at Sophie. He looked back at Nora."You look different," he said."Good or bad?" Nora asked.He thought about it seriously. "Pretty different," he decided. "Like when you wear the blue dress but this