It was only a chair. Until I understood what it meant.
For thirteen years, Robert Jennings always kept the seat beside him for his wife.
At weddings.
Family dinners.
Company events.
Even after he became one of New York's richest property developers, that small habit remained ours.
Then he hired Dana McCarthy.
Dana was clever, confident, and good at the job Robert had once begged me to help him build.
Soon, people started calling her his work wife.
Robert thought it was funny.
I didn't.
Still, I tried not to become suspicious of every late meeting and private joke.
Until the company's fifteenth-anniversary dinner.
I arrive and find Dana sitting beside my husband.
My name card has been moved three places away.
Robert sees my face.
He knows exactly why I am hurt.
And instead of correcting it, he quietly tells me not to embarrass him in front of investors.
So I sit somewhere else.
I smile.
I applaud his speech.
I listen while he thanks Dana for becoming the partner he “couldn't have built the future without.”
Then I go home and call a divorce lawyer.
Robert insists it was a seating mistake.
But our marriage did not end because of a chair.
It ended because when he had the chance to choose whether his wife belonged beside him, he worried more about embarrassing another woman.
Now the divorce could expose how much of his company I helped create.
His parents are terrified.
Dana wants the position beside him permanently.
And Michael O'Connor, my lawyer's older brother, is reminding me that there are men who do not need to be taught where their partner belongs.
Robert wants his seat beside me back.
He may discover somebody else is already sitting there.