“Okay.”
“Getting divorced is a hassle, you know,” Lillian said. “I mean, our prenup is very good, but it doesn’t cover everything.”
“I want you to take the duplex and the sailboat, and I want the yacht.”
“Sure, we can do that.”
“I don’t really care about any of the real estate, honestly, you can just buy me out of my equity.”
Lillian nodded. “But you know, if we do this, I’m going to try to take you for all you’re worth.”
Carver laughed. “You know that won’t work.”
“Yeah, but I’ll try anyway, with an excellent lawyer. I’m going to make you fight it out with me.” She grinned. She loved fighting it out. “You owe me that.”
He echoed her: “I can’t stop you.”
Lillian stopped and turned to him. The sun had come out from behind a cloud, and she was lit brilliantly by it, her eyes almost gold. He saw a flash of crow’s feet near the right one, skin and muscle acting in defiance of Botox, and he felt a surge of affection for her. She put her hand out to him, and he looked at it, then shook it.
“It was a good run,” she said.
“It was,” Carver agreed. “Hey, you want to race me?”
“Do what?”
“Race me, just up the beach here. Look how flat it is, it’s perfect to run on.”
Lillian turned to survey the landscape, then nodded. “It is.”
“You game?”
“I’m game,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. Then she abruptly dropped his hand and sprinted away from him, leaving forefoot strike marks in the sand.
“Hey!” Carver shouted, bolting after her. “Hey, cheater!”
Lillian let out a loud, throaty laugh and didn’t stop.
Carver agreed to get dinner with Lillian that night so they could continue hashing out the finer details of their separation, and in the meantime, she returned with him to his parents’ house so she could drop him off and then take the Maybach across the state line into Connecticut to do some shopping on Greenwich Avenue. She came inside with him, and they found the rest of his family in the den, finishing up the movie Free Solo. Lillian greeted everyone by loudly announcing that they were getting adivorce, to the horrified confusion of the adults and the confused horror of the children.
“It’s fine,” she said, flapping her hand. “It’s the best thing to do. I’m about to head back out, does anyone want anything from Hermes?” She waited, then looked around. “No?” She then said goodbye to everyone by going around and kissing them on the cheek before departing with a, “Ta!”
Once the front door had slammed shut behind her, the sound echoing down the hall, everyone stared at Carver like he’d been criminally negligent in some way. He scratched his stubbly cheek, realizing he hadn’t had the chance to shave yet. “Sorry about that.”
Nora’s face was a tight rictus of disbelief, like a clown had just run up to her and thrown a pie in her face.
“I’m missing something here, right?” Maggie said to Chip in an undertone, and he shushed her in an ‘I’ll-fill-you-in-later’ way.
“It’s alright,” Doug said stiffly, from his armchair which bookended the leather sectional. He gestured with remote in hand: “Come sit down.”
“What if I want a present from Hermes,” Aaron said to no one in particular.
Carver went and sat down on the couch between Chip and Conway, making each of them scoot over to accommodate him. He nudged the latter, then opened his palm to show her a pearly, creamy slipper snail shell.
“Pretty,” Conway murmured. “For me?”
“Yeah.”
She took it, smiling. “Thank you.”
