Part 2I Stepped Down From Their Little Trade

My mother had just gone into cardiac arrest, and she could not take any kind of shock.

She clutched her chest as her face rapidly turned ashen.

The moment I saw her, my ears started ringing, and my mind went blank.

I rushed in, hit the call button, and yanked Jolie to her feet.

“Scram!”

I shoved her out of the ward. Her back slammed against the wall.

Tears welled up in her eyes as she said, “Sonnet, I was just worried about you...”

“Leave now, or I’m calling the police.”

Only after the medical staff arrived did my mother’s condition gradually stabilize.

She held my hand and asked weakly, “Sonnet, is what she said true?”

I forced a smile. “No.

“Once you’re out of surgery, William and I are bringing you home.”

She looked at me for a long time, then finally nodded. “Okay. I believe you.”

I had just calmed her down when William called.

“Jolie was just trying to be nice by visiting Wilma. Why would you push her?”

I looked at my mother sleeping soundly in the hospital bed and lowered my voice. “She intentionally upset a woman with a heart condition, and you call that nice?”

Jolie’s sobbing came through the other end of the line.

“William, let it go. It’s my fault for not wording things right. Sonnet has every right to be upset...”

“Whatever she said to you, that doesn’t give you the right to get physical.

“I’ll tell you what. Sign the apartment in Bellevue over to Jolie. Consider it an apology.”

My heart sank when he brought up Bellevue. That was the first apartment we bought when we had nothing.

It was only six hundred fifty square feet.

In the winter, cold air seeped through the windows. The kitchen was so small we could barely open the fridge and the oven at the same time.

Yet, back then, we would cram onto that old couch and eat takeout, feeling like we had the whole world ahead of us.

William once held me and said, “Sonnet, this was our first home together. Whatever happens down the road, I’m never letting it go to anyone else.”

He was about to give our home to Jolie.

I closed my eyes in resignation. “Okay.”

My mother’s surgery was scheduled for three days later.

Three days were long enough to sign the apartment over and end this marriage.

I had the lawyer revise the divorce agreement, then slipped it in with the deed and stock transfer documents.

Then, I returned to the company I had co-founded with William.

The moment I walked up to the security gate, Olivia Smith, the front desk receptionist, stopped me.

“Sorry, I can’t let you up without an appointment.”

“I’m here to get Mr. Aldous to sign some paperwork.”

“Then, please contact Mr. Aldous directly. I can only let you in once he approves.”

I let out a self-deprecating laugh as I looked at the company logo on the wall, the one I had designed.

Just then, a delivery driver walked in carrying a takeout bag.

“Delivery for Ms. Jolie Howard.”

Olivia swiped him through the turnstile and waved him in.

“Ms. Howard is in the general manager’s office upstairs. You can take it straight up.”

The delivery driver walked straight into the elevator and vanished from view.

I, the founder, waited in the lobby for a full forty minutes before anyone finally cleared me to go up.