She sighs, but there's affection in it. "Fine. See you tomorrow. And Lana? I'm proud of you. The foundation—what we're building—it matters. You matter."
The call ends before I can figure out how to respond to that.
Solange is the only person from my old life who survived the transition. Everyone else—Gabriel's colleagues, the society wives who pretended friendship while cataloging my inadequacies, the couple-friends who were really Gabriel's friends and I was just the accessory who came with him—they all evaporated after his death. Some sent condolence cards with messages so generic they could have been printed. Others just disappeared.
Solange stayed. Showed up at the estate three days after Gabriel died with groceries and the ability to sit in a room with me without needing me to say anything. She'd met Gabriel exactly once, at a charity gala, and disliked him immediately. "That man treats you like a trophy he's waiting to cash in," she'd said. I'd defended him then. Habit. Fear. The same reason I defended him to myself for five years.
Now she's my partner in the foundation I built with my inheritance money. Blood money, some part of me thinks. Guilt money. But Solange insists it's justice money. "You survivedhim," she'd said when I pitched the idea five months ago. "Other women should get that chance too."
Setting up a proper nonprofit required a board—legal necessity for 501(c)(3) status.
Solange helped me assemble one: seven people with the expertise and connections we needed. Thomas Whitmore, a former executive with foundation experience, serves as board chair. Diana Corbett brings financial oversight and donor relations. Stephen Walsh joined three months ago with nonprofit management background.
The others—a trauma psychologist, a family law attorney, a retired social worker, and a community advocate—meet monthly, keep me accountable, lend credibility to what might otherwise look like a widow's guilt project. They don't ask me the question I see in their eyes sometimes: did you push him? They just help me build something that matters.
A foundation that provides financial support and legal resources to women leaving abusive marriages. Emergency housing. Safety planning. Divorce attorneys who work pro bono. Everything I wish I'd had before Gabriel fell.
Or before I pushed him.
The uncertainty tastes like copper.
I spend the evening preparing for tomorrow's donor lunch the way I used to prepare for Gabriel's business dinners: research the attendee, memorize relevant talking points, choose an outfit that communicates competence without threatening, practice the smile that makes people want to write checks.
Except I'm doing it for myself now. For women who need what I'm offering. That should feel different.
It does feel different. Just not in ways I know how to articulate yet.
At 11 PM, I take two sleeping pills—prescribed, legal, barely effective—and go to bed. Sleep comes in fragments. I dream about the terrace, the rain, Gabriel's face as he fell. In the dream, I'm standing where I stood that night, but when I look down at my hands, they're covered in something dark. Blood? Rain? The dream won't clarify.
I wake at 3 AM, palms pressed flat against the mattress, my heart racing. The ceiling fan rotates overhead, rhythmic and pointless. I count the rotations until my pulse returns to normal. Eighty-seven rotations. I've gotten good at counting things. Steps, rotations, minutes until I can pretend to be human again.
Thursday arrives whether I'm ready or not.
I dress for the donor lunch in charcoal—a concession to Solange—and decide to drive instead of taking the subway. I rarely use my car, but today the thought of crowded trains and close quarters feels unbearable. The drive to the foundation office in Midtown takes longer than the subway would, but the contained space of my car feels safer somehow.
The office is small, just three rooms in a building that used to be garment district warehouses before gentrification turned them into nonprofits and tech startups. But it's ours. The desk I sit at is mine. The mission statement on the wall was written by me and Solange over wine and determination.
Freedom Foundation: Because Leaving Should Be an Option, Not a Miracle.
Solange is already there when I arrive, dressed in a burgundy blazer that makes her look simultaneously fierce and approachable. She studies me when I walk in, takes in the charcoal dress, raises an eyebrow.
"Still basically black."
"You said charcoal was acceptable."
"I said it would be progress. I didn't say it would be impressive." She hands me coffee. "Baby steps."
I take it—black, the way I drink it now that Gabriel isn't around to insist I add cream and sugar because "black coffee isn't feminine."
Solange settles into her desk chair and pulls up her notes. "Anyway, the donor arrives at noon. Tech guy, thirty-four, made his fortune in cybersecurity. Interested in funding our legal aid expansion."
"Why us?" I ask. "There are bigger domestic violence organizations with better track records."
"Because I told him you're Gabriel Pope's widow and you're using your husband's money to help other women escape marriages like yours." She says it matter-of-factly, like she's reciting our address. "He finds that compelling."
I should be angry that she's using my tragedy as a marketing tool. But she's right—it is compelling. And if my pain can be converted into someone else's freedom, isn't that the whole point?
"What's his name?" I ask.
