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There’s a blankness after the door closes. It’s not silence. The clock ticks away on the mantel. The sound of their breath, hers and Mark’s, is large in the sudden stillness. There’s an emptiness, though, nothing but thin air where Tony was standing just a moment ago.
Mark takes her hands in his, wearing such a solemn expression that she hates to see it. His face is made for easy humor, quick smiles, the intimate glint of mischief in his eyes. “Darling, you can’t stay here,” he says, not like a decision, but a plea. “We can go to my hotel tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll look for a flat. Please let me take you away from this place. Let me take care of you.”
She finds herself nodding, but can’t seem to do anything else.
Mark appears to understand her paralysis, even if she doesn’t. “I’ll do the packing,” he assures her. “Leave everything to me.”
It’s funny, really, that all she’s been able to think about for months was how desperately she wished to come home, and now she feels like a stranger here. All throughout those heavy days alone in her cell, there was a constant thrumming beneath the never-ending noise of prison, the drumbeat of her moments on this earth slipping away from her. Picturing home was the only thing with the power to soothe her. She’d close her eyes tight and conjure up all the small, much-loved details.
As she looks around at the cups so proudly displayed, the mess of press clippings still sitting on the desk, the sundry bric-a-brac of their marital farce, her fingers itch for a match. She’d dearly love to burn down it all down, sear away every lie.
Mark returns from the bedroom carrying a suitcase, although it feels as if he stepped away only seconds ago. Something has gone terribly wrong with her relationship to time.
“Ready?” He stretches out his hand, and when she reaches back for him, it strikes her that if she’d done this before, if she’d accepted what he was offering a year ago, she could have saved herself so much suffering.
The taxi ride passes in a blur. She has no distinct memory of entering the hotel or taking the lift up to Mark’s floor. Just suddenly there they are in the close little room, lingering awkwardly near the door, as if they have absolutely no idea what to do next.
“Are you hungry?” Mark suggests at last. “Let me get room service to send something up.”
He picks up the phone, but she doesn’t catch what he’s saying, still stalled on the question: is she hungry? She must be, but it’s as if the connection between her mind and her body has been severed. She can’t feel a thing.
The moment seems to jump forward. Suddenly, the dishes sit dirtied on the small dining table, so she must have eaten, even if she can’t recall what it was.
“You must be tired,” Mark says. “Why don’t you take a bath and then we’ll get some sleep?”
It’s an appealing notion. All those months with one shower a week and no privacy—she never really felt clean. When she steps onto the cold tile of the bathroom floor, though, something in her balks. Memories flash back at her: the matron’s hard, agate stare, the lilting jeers of the other prisoners, what’s the matter, princess, you too good for the likes of us? She hurriedly washes up at the sink and pulls on her nightgown.
Mark is waiting for her when she comes back. They turn out the lights and lie down together. His body curves tenderly around hers, his breath in her hair as he says, “We’ll get through this together, Margot. You’ll see.”
“Mark, I’m so afraid I’ll never be myself again,” she confesses into the darkness.
He strokes a hand along her arm, trying to soothe her. “Of course, you are, darling. You’ve been through so much. Naturally, it’ll take time to recover, but you’ll get there. Just be patient with yourself.”
For a moment, Tony is in her head—it’s so easy to imagine what he’d say: “Well, now, you’re just being silly, aren’t you? You’ve had a fright, but it’s all been set to rights. Time to put that whole business behind you.”
But Tony’s not actually here. He never will be again. Margot stays awake long into the night, staring into the darkness as if there’s something to see.
One day fades into the next. Mark finds a flat for them, all the comforts of home: a sofa to sit on, a table where they eat, a bed in which to sleep. When Margot closes her eyes, though, she can’t conjure up an image of the place for the life of her. She doesn’t really inhabit space anymore, just lightly brushes against it.
Mark plans “outings” as he calls them, excuses to get her out of the flat. You loathe staying home and doing nothing, he reminds her. Sometimes, they take a walk in the nearby park or window shop on the high street. Today, it’s a quick trip to the market for the ingredients to make dinner.
Margot walks along, tucked closely at Mark’s side, the outside world flowing past her, a sequence of ever-changing abstract shapes like staring into a kaleidoscope. Indistinct whispers float past at times, unpleasant things, she imagines. She may not be a murderer, but she’s still an adulteress. There’s no such thing as clemency for that crime, as every woman knows.
She’s been trained all her life to care about the good opinion of others, but it’s just so much white noise now. Nothing can touch her. She wonders if anything ever will again.
On the return home, she gets the answer to that question. They’re walking along, and she’s hardly paying attention to the featureless haze of her surroundings when suddenly Tony is right there. She shrinks back, heart revving like an engine—it’s possible she cries out—she’s that convinced Tony has somehow gotten free and is standing there in the middle of the pavement.
It takes a long moment for her beleaguered mind to make sense of what she’s seeing: Tony’s picture on the front page of the evening paper. The headline screams in all capitals, “EX TENNIS STAR: I’VE DONE NO CRIME.” Margot’s face turns hot, and her body goes cold all over. She thinks she might be sick. It’s terror, she knows, but she’s not certain if she’s afraid of what Tony might do if he’s released or how easily she might be convinced to take him back if he really set his mind to it.
Mark’s arm is a comforting weight against her back, gently urging her forward. “Come on, darling. We’re nearly there.” In a quieter tone, he adds, “It doesn’t matter what he says now. He’s already confessed to several crimes. He won’t go free.”
Not for the first time, Margot thinks that Mark really has no notion who Tony is.
In the kitchen they unpack the grocery bags. Margot’s head feels like a balloon at the end of a very long string. Tony’s face still hovers before her eyes.
“I thought we could make it a tradition,” Mark says, holding up a box of spaghetti. “Help me with it?”
Margot somehow manages to chop vegetables although she can’t feel the knife in her hand. The pot of sauce bubbles away on the stove. When it’s done, Mark brings their plates to the table, and they sit. Utensils scrape against china. The food tastes like ashes in her mouth, but she smiles anyway, another thing she’s been trained all her life to do.
“I hope you’re not already tired of my cooking?” Mark jokes half-heartedly.
She shakes her head on cue and takes another bite that tastes like nothing.
Mark sets down his fork and reaches for her hand, his expression steady and serious. “Margot, I think we should leave London.”
Her mind goes blank at the thought. “Where would we go?” Truly, she can’t imagine.
“Somewhere Tony’s face won’t appear on the front page of the paper.” He curls his fingers around hers. “What do you say to America? We could go to New York—”
Margot shakes her head. “Somewhere quiet. Just the two of us.” Crowds can’t touch her, but the notion of meeting Mark’s friends, his family—
“I know a place,” he tells her. “There’s a little cottage on the coast of Maine. I’ve rented it a few times when I needed to do some serious writing. What do you think? Just say the word, and I’ll arrange everything.”
She nods and whispers, “Thank you.”
He fixes her with a solemn look. “You never have to thank me for looking after you.”
The road twists its way up to the promontory, the craggy Maine landscape blurring past, low-hanging sky and pale cliffs slowly crumbling into the sea. Everything feels very far away, almost ghostly, as if this is all just a dream.
“Almost there now,” Mark murmurs.
In the front seat, the man from the rental agency pipes up, “You won’t find a more peaceful spot anywhere, ma’am. I guarantee you that.”
When they park at last, Margot steps from the car into a blustery breeze, squints up at the turbulent swirl of clouds overhead, then out at the relentless white-capped waves on the distant horizon.
“It’s still early in the season,” the rental agent assures her as a sudden gust nearly dislodges her hat. “You’ll see fine days soon enough. When the garden blooms, there’s just the sweetest scent of flowers you could ever imagine perfuming the air.” He unlocks the door and ushers them inside.
At first glance, the space is rather small: sitting room, dining area, serviceable kitchen, a door that must lead to a bedroom. All the furnishings look comfortable if rather worn, a threadbare carpet on the floor, a large stone fireplace set into the wall with a stack of wood at the ready. Over the desk hangs a mirror, its frame decorated with shells. Tony would have detested that drifts unbidden through her head.
“I believe you’ve stayed with us before, Mr. Halliday,” the agent begins, “but just to refresh you on the amenities…we’ve laid in a few provisions in the kitchen to tide you over. The telephone is there on the desk for your convenience. There’s more firewood out in the shed, along with supplies for the beach, which you can reach by the stairway cut into the rock. Just be careful of your footing. The old Buick in the garage is yours to use during your stay, or you can phone the market in town for deliveries. And of course, our agency is always at your disposal.”
Margot drifts to the large picture window and stares out. The waves seem much closer than they actually are, as if they might crash right into the room. For just a moment, she finds herself wondering what it might feel like to drown.
“If there’s nothing else you folks need,” the agent continues, “I’ll leave you to settle in. I hope you enjoy your stay.”
Mark shakes hands with him. “Thank you, Mr. Donnelly. I’m sure we will.”
Margot manages to add her own pale smile to the thank you. Suddenly Tony is in her head again. Really, darling, all you had to do was smile and look pretty. Was that really so difficult?
The sound of Mr. Donnelly’s car fades away. Mark offers, “How about we go take a look around outside and unpack later?”
Margot doesn’t feel the least bit of curiosity about their surroundings, but she’s grateful not to have to think about what to do next.
Outside, a flagstone path leads around the side of the house. They follow it to the shed and peer inside. As promised, a stack of firewood awaits should they need it. Beach chairs and an umbrella hang from pegs on the wall. The garage lies a few yards beyond.
“Access to the beach is over here.” Mark leads the way.
The steps cut into the rock are narrow and steep, winding down and down into the gloom, seemingly into oblivion. A rush of terror stops Margot in her tracks. She came so close to oblivion herself. Her head feels suddenly too light, and the world starts to spin away. She reaches out for Mark, clinging onto the sleeve of his jacket, afraid she might faint.
Mark’s strong arms close around her, his breath warm against her temple. “That’s enough for one day. Let’s go back inside, and I’ll make you a nice cup of tea. We can explore the beach another time.”
Margot huddles close at Mark’s side as they cover the short distance to the cottage. She doesn’t dare look back, as if doing so might cast her into the darkness once more with no chance of escape this time.
The rain starts that evening and lingers for the next two weeks, coming down in sheets at times, keeping them cooped up indoors. Days blur together, and Margot begins each one the same way, sitting bolt upright in bed at the first spark of dawn with absolutely no notion at all where she is. Her pulse skitters with abject terror as she glances around, expecting to see stern gray walls and impenetrable iron bars. Her stomach sinks with dread that this might be her last day here, her last day in this life.
It's always Mark who brings her back to herself, the sense of his presence, the warmth of his body next to hers in bed. She lies there beside him, heart still drumming with fear, and listens to the cries of sea birds outside, the wind beneath the eaves, the distant sound of waves, all the distinct noises of their little cottage, reminding herself that she’s safe now.
There’s nothing to be done outside in the inclement weather, so they spend their days lazily reading dogeared paperbacks from the collection offered by the sitting room bookshelf. Margot curls into the wingback chair by the window and plows through one overly optimistic romance after another, all with torrid titles like Whispers in the Night and Undone by Desire, while Mark sprawls on the sofa with a pile of perfectly ghastly sounding thrillers, which he calls “research.”
She’s not sure why it's so comforting to lose herself in some fictional woman’s relationship woes. Maybe it simply gives her something to think about besides her own disastrous romantic choices. She turns every page hoping that the heroine will wise up in a way that she never did and think twice about marrying a man who’s too smooth by half.
“Oh, come on!” Mark scoffs aloud, frowning at the book he’s reading.
It takes Margot a moment to realize she’s actually smiling. “What is it, darling?”
“Just the most implausible plot you could possibly imagine.” He shakes his head in dismay.
Mark is a tough critic. Stories are quite important to him. You have to understand what it means when someone reads your book or watches your show, he once told her. They’re taking a chance on you, trusting that you’ll pull them into a whole other world, entertain them, move them, let them lose themselves for a little while. A story may not change someone’s life, but it should at least make their day.
It strikes Margot then, how much she misses Mark. Even if they have spent practically every moment together since she was freed from prison, she hasn’t really been present for any of it.
There’s no real decision she makes, no plan. The impulse of the moment carries her to her feet and the few steps across the room to the sofa where she joins Mark, cuddling along his side. “You don’t mind sharing, do you?”
His eyes turn a darker, warmer brown. “Never.”
“Is your book really so bad?” she asks, her voice low, the timbre of sharing secrets.
His mouth turns up at the corners. “It’s awful. Yours?”
“Perfectly dreadful,” she declares. “The couple have only just met, and the hero insults the heroine with the first words out of his mouth, and yet she’s somehow inclined to believe that makes him refreshingly candid and interesting or some nonsense. It’s amazing what will attract a woman to a man.”
There’s a flicker of something in Mark’s expression, and he takes a breath as if to pose another question, but then stops himself.
“It’s all right,” she tells him. “You can ask.”
He meets her eye. “What was it about him? I’ve always wondered.”
Margot bites her lip as she considers. “Tony would tell you it was because he was a tennis star, and I suppose that’s true in a roundabout sort of way. He was just so used to having everything he wanted, exactly as he liked it, you see. He ordered everything around him so effortlessly, without even seeming to do it. I’d never had any notion of what I wanted to be or do or how I wanted to live. Formless clay, that’s what I always felt like. It was so much easier relying on Tony to decide everything. In a terrible way, we were quite perfect for each other.”
Mark regards her solemnly. “I can’t be like him, Margot. I don’t see you as formless clay. I’m always going to want to know what you want, what makes you happy.”
She touches his face lightly. “I know, Mark. It’s why I fell in love with you.”
He leans nearer, and she helps close the distance between them. The first touch of lips is soft and tentative, a question. She sighs softly, her breath mingling with his, and then they’re kissing deeply, her hands clenched in the soft folds of his sweater, his fingers stroking through her hair. They kiss and kiss until they’re both laughing and breathless.
Her heart is beating so fast, and for a change, it has nothing at all to do with fear.
The rain lets up eventually, and when they venture outside, it’s to find everything changed. The garden and the woods beyond have all been touched with green, as if by some invisible hand. The world feels new and alive, the scent of good, clean earth rising in the air.
To Margot’s critical eye, the flower beds appear to have been rather sadly neglected, all the growing shoots fairly choked with weeds. She retrieves gardening tools from the shed and spends several mornings happily clearing away the mess, giving the flowers more breathing room.
Mark devises new outings for them, a great deal more fun this time around: trips into town for ice cream cones after dinner, long drives in the country past tidy farms and quaint little churches, a visit to an art gallery in a nearby city, a spin on the rides of a travelling carnival that leave Margot laughing and giddy.
They start every morning with a walk on the beach, a long patch of sand bordered on either side by outcroppings of rocks.
As they stroll along, it occurs to Margot, “You know, this reminds me very much of a place at the seaside where my family used to take holidays when I was a child.”
Mark smiles at her. “That must have been fun.”
She laughs. “Hardly. My parents generally fought the entire time.”
“They didn’t get along?” There’s a sympathetic note in Mark’s voice.
“Just the opposite,” she tells him. “They loved each other passionately. Their feelings for one another were just so very large and loud and messy, and I suppose I always felt quite on the outside of it all.”
Her parents have been gone a long while now, but it’s so easy to conjure up an image of them, making breakfast in the kitchen, standing shoulder to shoulder, an ever-present spark of connection between them that might quickly lead to raised voices or a flurry of kisses.
“I think that’s why I’ve always preferred for things to be as tidy as possible,” she says, thinking out loud. “Tony suited me well in that regard. He never could abide anything even remotely resembling a mess. He liked things just so. Decorating the home is typically the wife’s province, but in our case, Tony selected each and every item in our flat, down to the smallest detail. He couldn’t bear anything that wasn’t understatedly elegant.”
“What if you brought home something he didn’t care for?”
Margot lets out a dry little laugh. “Oh, he had his way of taking care of that. For our third wedding anniversary, my great aunt Hetty sent us a vase that she’d made herself. She’s terribly bohemian, always jetting off to go meditate at an ashram or learning how to batik fabric or some such thing. That was her pottery phrase.”
“I’m guessing it wasn’t understatedly elegant?” Mark suggests, with that spark of humor in his eyes that she loves to see.
“Not in the slightest. It was rather a monstrosity to be truthful and decorated with every color known to humankind, but still charmingly whimsical in its way, a bit like that seashell mirror back at the cottage. I quite adored it.”
“Tony did not, I’m assuming.”
She shakes her head. “I came home from running errands one afternoon to find it in shards on the sitting room carpet. Tony apologized profusely of course, said it was damnably clumsy of him. Naturally, I wondered if he’d done it on purpose, but he looked at me so gravely, as if he were truly sorry, as if he actually cared that I was upset.” She sighs. “And I believed him.”
“Tony’s very believable,” Mark tells her. “It took me far too long to suspect he might have had a hand in the so-called break in. I’ve never met anyone as smooth or as cunning. There was no way you could have guessed what was hidden behind that suave veneer.”
“I did have glimpses,” Margot admits. “A hardness in his eyes at times. This little smile he’d get after maneuvering me into something I didn’t particularly want to do, not a very nice or loving expression at all. That’s not even to mention how he was during those final awful days of his tennis career.”
“I always felt you were holding back things when we talked about it before.” He turns a very serious look on her. “Was he ever violent?”
“No, never. He just—he wasn’t the man I’d married anymore.” She lets out a breath. “He’d always been on top, you see, unbeatable at tournament after tournament, all of it coming so effortlessly. As he grew a bit older, though, winning became far harder until in the end he wasn’t doing much of it at all. I didn’t care anything about that, but it’s how he reacted that alarmed me.”
“What happened?” Mark gently prompts.
“It was as if Tony suddenly wasn’t himself anymore,” she explains. “He’d lost that sense of complete control, which he prized more than anything else. It was so hard to see him like that, and I wanted desperately to talk to him, to try to help. But we didn’t have the sort of marriage where we exchanged confidences.”
“Things left to fester only tend to get worse,” Mark observes.
“Yes, it all came to a head one night after a particularly disappointing loss. When Tony came back to our hotel room, he flew into a rage and smashed everything he could lay his hands on. I was terribly frightened. That’s when I grew determined that he should retire from tennis and settle down to a job before he became someone completely unrecognizable. You know how well that turned out.”
He reaches for her hand, laces their fingers together. “You mustn’t ever fault yourself for not seeing through him. No one could have predicted what happened. If I submitted a television script with a plot like that, I’d get it sent back with a note to come up with something that wasn’t completely outlandish.”
They walk on further, and Mark grows thoughtful, staring off into the distance.
“What is it?” Margot asks. “Tell me.”
“I was just thinking that it makes sense why you were drawn to Tony initially, given what you told me about your family.” He slants a glance at her. “But where do I fit in? Being with me is hardly tidy.”
She laughs free and easy, for the first time in months, maybe in years. “Oh Mark, tidiness is terribly overrated. I realize that now. I want to be in a relationship that’s the most glorious mess imaginable, where we talk about everything, and care passionately what the other person wants, and figure out how to make our way through this world together.”
“I want that too,” he says softly.
He pulls her into his arms, and she leans eagerly into his kisses.
In the evenings when they don’t go out for dinner, it’s become a habit to cook together. Tonight, they’re trying their hand at fish chowder. Once the soup pot is simmering away, Margot turns to rinsing vegetables for the salad she’ll fix.
Mark sidles up to the sink. “I’m just going to wash my hands.” He reaches around her, their bodies pressed close together.
“Why do I feel like hygiene is just a pretense?” she asks teasingly.
He dips a kiss to her shoulder. “Because you know me too well.”
It’s a light-hearted little remark, but she’s struck by the truth of what he’s said. Six years married to Tony, and he remained a veritable mystery to her. But Mark—she’s understood him from the first glance they ever shared.
She twists around in his arms and kisses him, desperate for his touch, for the warm strength of his body, the rush of his breath mingling with hers, and the way his hand cups her cheek so tenderly. Some essential part of her that’s been wandering in the darkness for the past months is suddenly flooded with light. She’s completely, wondrously alive.
“Oh Mark,” she says breathlessly. “I do love you so very much.”
“Margot.” The way he says her name makes her shiver deliciously. “I love you too, darling. I always have.”
She smiles up at him. “What would you say to enjoying our dinner with the lovely bottle of wine we have chilling and then perhaps retiring to bed early?”
His answering smile has that touch of mischief she’s always adored about him. “I’d say that sounds like a marvelous plan.”
Mark puts on a record, and they sit down to eat. The fish chowder is delicious, if Margot does say so herself. They drink their wine and talk about what they’ll do tomorrow, and it strikes Margot that there’s no place she’d rather be.
When dinner’s done and the food’s been put away and the dishes left to soak in the sink, Mark suggests, “How about a dance before we turn in?” He holds out his hand to her and reels her in.
She settles into his arms. “I would love to.”
Doris Day sings about her secret love, and Margot closes her eyes, content in Mark’s embrace as they glide around the sitting room.
“Margot.” There’s a catch in Mark’s voice. “I missed you every moment of every day while you were gone.”
His expression is painfully vulnerable, and suddenly she can imagine how it must have been for him. She’s thought about the trial and prison and her near brush with the gallows as something that happened to her. But it happened to them. He would move heaven and earth for her, she knows this without a doubt, and he’d come so close to losing her forever, unable to do a single thing to help.
She kisses him, holding him tight, a promise in every touch. “I’m here now, darling, and you’ll never have to miss me again.”
The weeks fly by, and it’s August before Margot knows it, full-throated summer in all its golden glory. She’s never actually had a honeymoon, not to speak of anyway. The three days Tony took away from the tennis tour hardly deserve the term. But this lazy, idyllic time with Mark feels very much like a honeymoon, even if they have rather put the cart before the horse when it comes to being married.
The one dark cloud still hanging over them is, of course, Tony. There’s been no word yet about what charges he’ll be tried on or the status of the divorce proceedings that her solicitor is shepherding through the courts.
“Mr. Everly has the phone number for the cottage,” Mark assures her whenever she starts to fret. “He’ll let us know as soon as there’s any news.”
Even with the lingering uncertainty, Margot is able to put Tony out of her mind for long stretches and focus on simply enjoying the moment with Mark.
Today, they take a long drive along the coast to the wild blueberry barrens, wide open spaces with only shrubby bushes and a sea of reddish purple as far as the eye can see. They stop at a farm that offers guided tours of their operation and boasts a gift shop with all manner of blueberry-related items.
Mark wanders over to a bookshelf and flips through the pages of a book about the history of berry cultivation in Maine. Margot browses the postcards and chooses one with a stunning photo of the fields as a memento. She takes a basket and adds a few pints of blueberries to it, then spots a table with a selection of jams and jellies.
“All made right here using our own fruit,” the girl working the register speaks up when she notices Margot eyeing the jars.
“How marvelous,” she exclaims. “Mark, should we pick up some jam to have with breakfast?”
He comes to join her. “You should get whatever you like. I never touch the stuff.”
Margot fixes him with a look. “Since when do you not like jam?”
He laughs. “Since I was three years old and my mother hid my crushed-up medicine in a spoonful of grape jelly.”
The way he shudders at the words makes her laugh and also reach for his hand. “My poor darling.”
There’s a tenderness in his eyes when he gazes down at her, his smile just the sweetest thing she’s ever seen, and she’d kiss him right there in the middle of the gift shop if the salesgirl weren’t watching them like they’re something out of a television melodrama.
On the way home, they stop for lunch at the most darling little roadside café for lobster rolls and crispy roasted potatoes. Margot feels sated and happy with the world afterwards.
It’s nearing five o’clock by the time they make it home to the cottage. They put away the berries and jam in the kitchen and spend a few minutes lazing on the sofa.
“What do you think about a stroll on the beach?” Mark suggests
“I think it sounds marvelous,” Margot readily agrees. “Let me just go and change my clothes.”
She’s just returning from the bedroom when the phone rings, a sound they haven’t heard in—she doesn’t even know how long. They both freeze in place and stare at the thing like it’s a bomb that’s rigged to explode. Of course, it might not be Margot’s solicitor calling—it’s rather late in London. Perhaps the rental agency just needed to get in touch with them about some matter.
“I’ll get it,” Mark says and picks up the receiver. “Hello? Oh yes, hello, Mr. Everly. Thank you for calling. Oh no, it’s not at all late where we are.”
Margot paces a tight little circuit back and forth to the wingback chair, trying to parse some meaning from “mm-hmm” and “I see.”
The conversation concludes quickly enough, even if it feels like it’s gone on forever. “Thank you again for calling, Mr. Everly,” Mark says. “I’ll let her know.”
She doesn’t even wait for him to hang up before demanding, “What is it?”
Mark takes her hands. “It’s good news.”
Margot can barely process those words, as if the idea of something going right has lost all meaning in her life.
“Word came late tonight from the Crown Prosecution Service. They’ve decided to charge Tony with two counts of attempted murder.”
She frowns in confusion. “Two?”
Mark nods. “For blackmailing Swann into trying to strangle you and for fabricating the evidence that led to your being convicted of a capital crime.”
The surprise of hearing this—all the air seems to rush out of her body. She hardly knows how to make sense of it. There’s a part of her that truly believed Tony would somehow manage to charm or lie or trick his way out of everything, that he’d never be held accountable.
Mark takes her in his arms. “There’s more,” he says softly.
She clings onto him. “What more could there be?”
“Your divorce filing is steadily making its way through all the necessary channels. It should be finalized by the end of the year.”
“Oh Mark!” She hugs him tightly. “We’re truly free now.”
Mark’s lips brush her temple. “We are. We can go wherever we please, do whatever we like.”
She laughs. “How wonderful and also how completely overwhelming. I feel utterly at sea about what comes next.”
He smiles. “There’s no hurry. We have time. We’ll—how did you put it? Figure out how to make our way through this world together?
Margot thinks that nothing has ever sounded more beautiful.
“I’d like that very much,” she tells him, leaning in for a long kiss.