RUBY
I stand in my bedroom, watching Athena’s staff transform my backyard. The house feels alive for the first time in two years, but the activity still makes my skin crawl with an unsettling mix of gratitude and resentment.
The pool, empty for so long, fills inch by inch with crystalline water. Andreas, Athena’s gardener, moves between the planters, setting plants into fresh soil. The loungers from the pool house gleam in their new positions, freshly cleaned and topped with plush cushions in shades of blue and white. I think they’re mine, but I’m not even sure. Maybe Athena asked Andreas to buy new ones.
In just a few hours, Athena and her efficient team have dismantled pieces of my past. Her housekeeper, Asha, made the phone calls I couldn’t—canceling Claire’s subscriptions, her phone, her credit cards. Each cancellation felt like another small death, another erasure of Claire’s existence, yet there was also relief in watching someone else handle the tasks that have paralyzed me for so long.
Even Claire’s BMW, still sitting in the garage collecting dust, will be sold. “You’ll never drive it,” Athena saidmatter-of-factly. “And cars aren’t meant to sit idle.” She’s right, of course, and that bothers me almost as much as her inexplicable determination to help me.
I still can’t figure out her angle. Maybe she wants leverage—an IOU from the city’s most feared corporate lawyer. Or perhaps she’s ensuring I won’t dig too deeply into whatever happens in her house. But when I catch her watching me, I see something that looks like genuine concern.
Now she stands in my bedroom, waiting as I finally head for the walk-in closet. My hand trembles slightly on the handle.
“We don’t need to do this today,” I say quickly, dropping my hand. “I can hire someone to deal with it.”
“Some things can be handled by others,” Athena says softly. “But this isn’t one of them. You need to do this yourself, Ruby. It’s part of the process—one you’ve been avoiding by burying yourself in work.”
I let out a long, shaky sigh, finally pushing open the door. “What do you want me to do?” My voice cracks. “Just throw everything away?”
“No, of course not.” Athena moves to stand in the doorway but doesn’t enter the closet. “You could donate them to charity? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think you need the money from selling them. There are people out there who could really use her clothes. If you want, we can pack them together, and I’ll go with you to drop them off.” She pauses, then adds quietly, “You know you need to do this.”
I stare at Claire’s clothes, each piece holding a memory: the blue dress she bought in Paris; the worn leather jacket that still smells of her. Leather holds scents for longer, and sometimes I torture myself by burying my face in it.
Asha has already brought in cardboard boxes—where did she even find them so quickly?
“I’m not ready,” I say. “It’s not a good time.”
Athena nods and gives me a sweet smile. “It’s never a good time.”
She’s right again, so with trembling hands, I reach for the first garment. A Harvard Law T-shirt, soft from years of wear. Claire used to sleep in it, claimed it was more comfortable than any silk pajamas. My fingers curl into the fabric, and suddenly I’m back in our bed, Claire’s laughter filling the room as she stole my side, claiming it was warmer.
One by one, I take down the clothes. A blue blazer she wore to court. The dress from our first anniversary dinner. Her running shoes, still caked with red desert dust from her last morning jog. Each piece feels like I’m packing away a part of her.
Athena works silently beside me, folding everything I hand her with respect, not rushing me when I pause over certain items, letting me set the pace. She doesn’t comment when I set aside a few pieces—the Harvard shirt, her favorite sweater, the emerald dress she wore when we first met. Some things I’m not ready to let go of yet.
The closet empties gradually, the boxes filling with the physical remnants of Claire’s life. Finally, we reach the last few items. As I take down her winter coat—barely used in Vegas—the empty rails on her side of the closet create a void I can’t look away from. The space yawns like an open grave.
“Asha can move some of your clothes over,” Athena says gently. “So it won’t look so empty. Or we can do it together, if you prefer?”
I stare at the bare space, at the hangers that once held pieces of Claire’s life. Everything feels too fast, too efficient, too final. In just a few hours,Athena has systematically dismantled the fortress around Claire’s memory. Each phone call, each packed box, each decision has stripped away another layer of my protection. She makes it all seem so simple, so logical—as if grief can be packed away in neat boxes and donated to charity, as if memory can be reorganized like clothes in a closet. But nothing about this is simple. Nothing about losing Claire has ever made sense, and I’m not ready for it to start making sense now.
“Ruby?” Athena’s voice pulls me from my thoughts.
Something inside me snaps. “Who do you think you are?” The words come out in a harsh whisper that builds to a shout. “You just barge in here and start erasing Claire like she never existed! Canceling her subscriptions, selling her car, packing away her clothes—what the fuck gives you the right?”
Athena stays perfectly still, her expression calm. “This isn’t about erasing her, Ruby. It’s about?—”
“Moving on? Is that what you were going to say?” I’m shaking now, rage and grief mixing into something toxic in my chest. “You don’t know anything about moving on! You’ve been here what, six hours? And suddenly you’re an expert?”
I grab one of the boxes, upending it. Claire’s clothes spill across the floor like colorful wounds. “You want to help? You want to fix the sad widow next door? Well, guess what—I don’t need fixing! I don’t need your help or your pity or your mysterious interest in my life!”
The silence that follows is deafening and it’s so quiet I can even hear the pool filling outside. I can’t live with Claire’s things surrounding me, but I can’t bear to let them go either.
“Get out,” I say, my voice raw. “Take your people with you and just…leave me alone.”
Athena doesn’t argue. She doesn’t try to defend herself or explain her actions. She simply nods once and turns to leave. At the bedroom door, she pauses but doesn’t look back.
“When you’re ready,” she says softly, “you know where to find me.”
