Chapter 7: The Last Goodbye

I exchanged most of my dowry for cashier’s checks and kept them safe.

I hid the checks inside a battered cigar box, tucking it beneath sweaters at the back of my closet. The weight of my future pressed heavy in my hands.

Caleb ignored me for a day before finally coming to see me.

He said my father had been demoted to assistant county clerk and would leave for Georgia in three days to take up his post.

My mother would go with him.

As a married daughter, I could stay in Savannah and continue to be an attorney’s wife.

Caleb leaned against the doorframe, backlit, his handsome face half in shadow.

“Natalie, if you hadn’t married me, you’d have to go to that muggy, backwater place.”

His tone was mocking, but there was a hint of something else—regret, or maybe just the knowledge that he was winning.

I said nothing.

If I hadn’t fallen for Caleb at first sight—

Even if it were a senator’s son, I could have married. Life would have been peaceful. Why suffer all this?

The thought twisted inside me, a sharp pang of what-ifs and wasted years.

Seeing me silent, he pulled a bracelet from his pocket and slammed it onto my dresser.

“You lied to me.”

“You sold it.”

He bit out the word “lied,” clearly angry.

I said quietly, “I didn’t want it anymore, so I sold it. Is that so hard to understand?”

His brows furrowed in anger.

“The housekeeper said you’ve sold part of your dowry recently.”

He stared at me, as if trying to see right through me.

“You don’t wear jewelry now, nor do you go out. Why do you need so much money? What are you planning to do with it?”

His voice was low, suspicious—a lawyer’s voice, full of accusation and disbelief. If only he knew—I’d trade every last pearl just to buy my freedom. I met his gaze, calm now, the storm inside me settling at last. He didn’t know it yet, but I was already gone.