Page 10 of Just Ten Seconds

I set my mail and keys on the small table in the kitchen and open the freezer. My frozen dinners are perfectly lined up in their boxes, yet I’m not hungry.

I close the door and straighten the pictures on my refrigerator—me and Jackie in tenth grade, looking pudgy-faced and happy, and another of us taken after I moved to Warwick, standing behind the counter with our matching black Harvest Café T-shirts.

She brought these pictures over as a housewarming along with two really inappropriate magnets. One is in the shape of a donut that says, Donut be an asshole. The other is a naked man with an oven mitt over his groin. I would get rid of them, but they make Jackie happy. That, and the fact that she’d probably be over the following day with an even bigger and dirtier one.

I walk down the hallway, passing the robin’s-egg-blue bathroom with a matching toilet, sink, and cast iron tub. It hasn’t been updated since the sixties, and yet it’s my favorite part of the apartment.

In my room, I take a seat on my bed, and it creaks with the weight. My back sinks into the quilt as my muscles twinge in discomfort from standing on my feet all day. Raising my hands over my head, I let out a stretch as I look out the small, rectangular window and sigh.

Friday night.

Not too long ago, this night was reserved for dinner and drinks out with friends. Now, all I want to do is have a beer and a bath, preferably at the same time. That would be followed by a few hours of heavy self-doubt and anxiety over my past. You know, because that’s how I party on a Friday night.

While all of those things sound awesome, I made a date with a kind woman, and I intend to keep it.

I change into a pair of sweats and a long-sleeved top. The only thing I kept from my old life was my wardrobe. Turns out, when the government repossesses everything you own, they don’t want your clothes. Your property—the Manhattan condo, Florida vacation villa, motorboat docked in Port Washington—can all be whisked away. Hell, even your Mercedes and the jewelry your husband gave you go into the hands of Uncle Sam.

Not that I wanted any of it. Fuck it. Take it all.

I walked away from my home with whatever clothes I could fit into two suitcases, and it still felt like too much.

I swoop my hair up into a claw clip and look at my reflection in the mirror. I look nothing like the socialite who once inhabited this body. My long brown hair could use some new highlights, and my once-glowing complexion from regular trips to the spa is muted. I don’t even look like the cherub-faced girl in the photo on my refrigerator. She wasn’t glowing from skin care products and a Brazilian blowout. Her beauty came from happiness. I could use some of that too.

Walking back through my kitchen, I see the mail on the table and decide to open it. The first is my electric bill, followed by a solicitation from a local realtor who sold a house in the area. When I see the handwriting on the third envelope, my stomach drops, and so does a piece of my soul.

It’s sent from Fishkill Correctional Facility, inmate 05A-5191120, and addressed to Mara Greenfield. Not Mara Williams, my maiden name and the one I go by now.

My hands shake as I drop the letter to the table.

It’s the twelfth letter he’s written in as many months.

The monster.

I don’t have to close my eyes to see his face as he sat at the mahogany table of the courtroom in Lower Manhattan, wearing a black suit that made him look more polished than the lying, stealing, murderous animal that he was. His expression appeared almost bored, like he was at the dentist, waiting for a cleaning. When his eyes flicked up to me as I sat on the witness stand, I almost backed out before giving my testimony. I knew what he was doing. He was trying to get me to change my words and alter my thoughts, but I couldn’t.

I told my story. As hard as it was, I relived it on the stand in front of reporters, family, and God.

Once I said it, I haven’t spoken about it again.

I don’t know how he got my address, but he’s been reaching out, and each time, I burn it.

For five years, I loved my Benjamin.

I had been bartending at a nightclub in the city when we met. He sat at the bar, ordered a dirty martini, and asked me to go to bed with him. I made his drink extra dirty, poured it down the front of his Armani suit, and kicked him out. The next day, he showed up and sat in the same seat, wearing a poncho. He looked ridiculous, but he assured me it was only in case I decided to dump his next drink on his head … which he rightly deserved.

I didn’t, but I also didn’t give him the time of day. Not that day or the next or the next.

He showed up every day for two months.

I finally gave in.

He’d won me over with his wit and passion for a good time. We went out every weekend, ate at the best restaurants, and enjoyed lazy Sundays in bed.

When he and his best friend decided to open their own wealth management firm and it took off, I was his greatest cheerleader.

Then, I became Mrs. Benjamin Greenfield, and soon, we were talking about starting a family.

A family.