Chapter 2 - The Folder on the Sideboard
Bellamy laughed.
It wasn’t a natural laugh.
It was sharp, nervous, almost mechanical.
“You’re being ridiculous.”
Byron picked up the cream-colored folder.
“No.”
He placed it on the dining table.
“For the first time in years, I’m not.”
Bellamy looked around the room, perhaps expecting someone to support her.
Her mother stared at the table.
Her father looked uncomfortable.
Grant rubbed his jaw.
Nobody moved.
I touched Byron’s arm.
“Son, whatever this is, Christmas isn’t the time.”
He looked at me.
“That’s exactly what I’ve been telling myself for years.”
He pulled out a chair for me.
“Please sit.”
I sat slowly.
My cheek still burned.
Byron remained standing.
“I started talking to an attorney six weeks ago.”
Bellamy’s face lost color.
“An attorney?”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
“Our marriage.”
The room seemed to shrink.
Bellamy stared at him.
“You’re divorcing me?”
“I was going to tell you privately tomorrow.”
Her mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Byron continued.
“I didn’t want the children hearing this. I didn’t want our families involved. I wanted us to handle it like adults.”
He glanced at me.
“But what happened tonight changes how carefully I’m willing to protect your image.”
“Protect my image?”
Bellamy’s voice rose.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means I’ve spent years pretending not to notice things because I wanted Noah and Sophie to have a peaceful home.”
My granddaughter’s eyes filled with tears.
Byron immediately softened.
“Sophie, honey, take Noah upstairs.”
Bellamy snapped, “They stay.”
“No,” Byron said.
It was the first time I had ever heard him use that tone with her.
“The children are not participating in this.”
Sophie stood.
She took her younger brother’s hand.
Before leaving, she walked toward me.
She hugged me.
“I’m sorry, Grandma.”
My throat tightened.
“You didn’t do anything.”
She whispered, “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
When the children disappeared upstairs, Byron closed the dining-room doors.
Then he returned to the table.
Bellamy pointed toward the folder.
“What exactly have you been documenting?”
“Everything I should have confronted years ago.”
I looked at him.
“What do you mean?”
Byron exhaled.
“The first time I noticed was Dad’s funeral.”
My chest tightened.
Walter’s funeral had been three years earlier.
Bellamy had hosted the reception afterward.
I remembered spending most of it in the kitchen.
I had assumed she was overwhelmed.
Byron looked at me.
“Mom, you had just buried your husband. Bellamy asked you to clean wine glasses.”
Bellamy rolled her eyes.
“Oh, please.”
Byron ignored her.
“Then Thanksgiving. Your birthday. Sophie’s school recital. The anniversary dinner. Every time, there was another excuse to make Mom feel like she didn’t belong.”
“I asked her for help.”
“No. You treated her like staff.”
My heart sank.
He had noticed.
All those years, I thought my son had been too busy.
I thought he hadn’t seen.
He had.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” I whispered.
Byron looked ashamed.
“Because every time I tried, you defended her.”
That silenced me.
He was right.
I remembered conversations.
“She’s stressed.”
“She didn’t mean it.”
“It’s not worth fighting about.”
“She’s your wife.”
I had thought I was protecting his marriage.
Instead, I had helped Bellamy hide what she was doing.
Bellamy shook her head.
“This is insane. Your mother has manipulated you.”
Byron stared at her.
“My mother has spent five years making excuses for you.”
Charles finally spoke.
“Byron, marriages have disagreements. Surely this can be discussed privately.”
Byron looked at his father-in-law.
“I tried.”
“When?”
“Many times.”
Bellamy’s eyes widened.
“You never told me you wanted a divorce.”
“I told you repeatedly that the way you treated my mother had to stop.”
“That’s different.”
“Why?”
“Because she interferes.”
I stared at her.
“How?”
Bellamy turned toward me.
“You’re always there.”
“I visit twice a month.”
“You call Byron constantly.”
“Usually once a week.”
“You make him feel guilty.”
“For what?”
“For becoming successful!”
That shocked me.
Byron actually laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because he seemed unable to believe what he had heard.
“Mom mortgaged her house to keep my first company alive.”
Bellamy went silent.
I looked sharply at Byron.
“That was private.”
“Not anymore.”
He turned toward the room.
“When I was twenty-nine, my business was six weeks from bankruptcy. Banks wouldn’t touch us. Investors walked away.”
He pointed toward me.
“My mother and father borrowed against the house they had spent twenty-five years paying off.”
I lowered my eyes.
Walter and I had never considered it heroic.
Byron was our son.
That was enough.
“They gave me $180,000,” Byron continued. “Every dollar they could access.”
Bellamy’s father looked surprised.
Apparently, she had never told them.
“Four years later,” Byron said, “the company was worth thirty million.”
Bellamy crossed her arms.
“And you repaid them.”
“Yes.”
“So?”
Byron stared at her.
“So my mother wasn’t some poor relative who wandered into my success after it happened. She helped build the foundation beneath it.”
I wanted him to stop.
Not because he was wrong.
Because I didn’t want my love for him turned into evidence.
“I didn’t do it to own part of your life,” I said.
“I know.”
Byron crouched beside my chair.
“That’s exactly why this hurts.”
For the first time that night, his composure cracked.
“I let someone humiliate the woman who risked her home for me.”
I touched his face.
“You didn’t slap me.”
“No.”
He looked toward Bellamy.
“But I kept hoping things would improve when I already knew they weren’t improving.”
Bellamy suddenly grabbed the folder.
Byron didn’t stop her.
She opened it.
Her eyes moved quickly across the first page.
Then the second.
“What is this?”
“A proposed separation agreement.”
Her mother gasped.
Bellamy stared at him.
“You were planning this before tonight?”
“Yes.”
Her face twisted.
“So this whole dinner was a setup.”
“No.”
“You wanted me to lose control!”
“Bellamy, nobody forced you to hit my mother.”
That ended the argument.
She threw the papers onto the table.
“You think you can walk away and take everything?”
Byron’s expression changed.
There it was.
The sentence that revealed what mattered most to her.
Not the marriage.
Not the children.
Everything.
Charles stood.
“Everyone needs to calm down.”
But Byron didn’t look at him.
He looked at Bellamy.
“I don’t want a war.”
“You’ll have one.”
“I expected that.”
Bellamy stared at the folder again.
Then she smiled.
It was the first genuinely confident expression I had seen since Byron stood up.
“You forgot something.”
“What?”
“The house.”
Byron said nothing.
Bellamy’s smile widened.
“This mansion was purchased during our marriage. Half of it belongs to me.”
Byron slowly straightened.
“Are you sure?”
Something in his voice made Bellamy’s smile disappear.
I looked between them.
“Byron?”
He reached into the folder again.
“There’s another document.”
Bellamy’s eyes followed his hand.
And when Byron placed that document on the table, even her father leaned forward.
Because the mansion Bellamy had spent years treating like her personal kingdom carried a secret she apparently never knew.
May you like
And my late husband’s name was on the first page.
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