The Wife He Tried To Erase Chapter 17
Emilia was finishing her new work in the studio.
This painting was no longer the oppressive red and black, but vast swathes of gentle pale gold and sky blue, resembling the early thawing snow outside the window.
The studio door was not closed tightly, and cold wind mixed with footsteps swept inside.
Elroy was dressed in black, with a glaring white flower pinned to his chest.
He stood at the doorway, as if he had used all his strength just to keep from collapsing.
“Mrs. Gallagher.”
“Mr. Gallagher… is gone.”
Emilia’s brush suddenly halted in her hand.
The air froze for several seconds.
Emilia did not turn around; she simply lowered her eyelids, staring at the drop of paint that had ruined the entire painting.
She picked up the palette knife and calmly scraped away the paint, her movements steady without a trace of tremor.
“When did it happen?”
“Last night, at the end of the award ceremony,” Elroy said, his head bowed, tears falling onto the floor.
“He passed while watching your livestream. The coroner said… it was an overdose, he went peacefully, still holding that ring in his hand.”
Emilia’s fingers gently caressed the cold edge of the palette knife.
Last night?
“Understood.”
Emilia put down the palette knife and turned around.
She looked at Elroy; her beautiful face showed neither the shock Elroy had expected nor a single tear, only a calmness as still as dead water.
“Has the body been cremated?”
Elroy was stunned, as if he had not expected her to ask so directly, so coldly.
“It has already been sent to the funeral home. Mr. Gallagher left a will before his death: no memorial hall, no funeral, the ashes… he said to dispose of them as you wish, scatter them in the sea or flush them down the drain, just don’t let them offend your eyes.”
Elroy took out a black box from his chest, his hands trembling as he offered it forward.
“This was found by the lawyer while sorting through his belongings. Mr. Gallagher specifically wanted you to have it.”
Emilia did not reach for it immediately.
Her gaze fell upon the box.
It was an heirloom of the Gallagher family; Nicholas used to fill it with expensive jewelry to amuse her.
Now, it contained his life.
“Put it down.”
“Mrs. Gallagher…” Elroy could not help but step forward, his eyes red.
“Are you really not going to see him one last time? He lived in the basement for half a year, before he died he was nothing but skin and bones, and he kept repeating your name…”
“Elroy.”
Emilia interrupted him, her gaze suddenly cold.
“I’ll say it again, I’m not Mrs. Gallagher. Besides, a proper ex should be as quiet as if dead. Now that he really is dead, that’s good.”
Elroy opened his mouth, looking at the woman before him who was once gentle but now had a heart of stone, but in the end, he could not utter a single word.
He put down the box, bowed deeply, and withdrew.
The studio returned to silence.
Emilia walked over and opened it; inside lay a heavily worn black voice recorder and a letter.
On the envelope was Nicholas’s vigorous handwriting.
At the signature, there was a bright red private seal, once a symbol of his power, now a proof of his death.
Emilia looked at those lines of writing, her fingertips growing cold.
Even in death, he was still trying to win against her in this way.
He refused to sign the divorce agreement, refused to acknowledge the breakdown of their relationship.
He used his life to exploit the loophole of widowhood, so as to maintain his so-called “lifelong non-divorce.”
This was not even love.
It was a suffocating form of control, an obsession to have his name carved beside hers on the tombstone, even if he turned to ashes.
“Nicholas, you really are a madman.”
Emilia murmured softly.
She picked up the voice recorder.
Inside it were her hundred most painful memories, as well as countless days and nights of Nicholas’s breakdowns and wails in the basement over the past half year.
Elroy had said that Nicholas kept listening to this before he died.
He was using her pain to punish himself.
Emilia’s finger hovered over the play button, pausing for a moment.
If she pressed it, she would hear how that arrogant man cried like a dog in the dead of night, and how he walked step by step toward death.
Perhaps that would be satisfying.
But…
“There’s no need.”
Emilia released her finger, throwing the voice recorder and the letter into the fireplace together.
Flames leapt up instantly, greedily devouring the black plastic and white paper.
Emilia stood before the firelight, watching the flickering flames reflected in her pupils.
She saw the voice recorder, which had carried so much sin and pain, melt into waste.
Those nightmares of a hundred electric shocks.
Those three years of humiliation and torment.
That marriage that made her sick.
All in this moment, burned clean by the fire.
The place in her chest that had always ached suddenly felt empty.
It was as if a huge stone she had carried for so long had finally landed.
“It’s over.”
Emilia turned away, no longer glancing at the pile of ashes.
She walked to the window and forcefully pushed open the heavy floor-to-ceiling glass.
Sunlight poured over her, warm and gentle.
Downstairs, a white sedan was parked there.
Zachary leaned against the car door, holding a bouquet of freshly bought sunflowers.
Seeing her by the window, Zachary looked up, showing a bright and warm smile, and waved at her.
“Emmy! Come down! I’ll take you to try the new brunch place!”
Emilia looked at him and smiled as well.
That smile was no longer the indifference she showed Nicholas, but a genuine, radiant smile from the heart.
She leaned out, responding loudly to the sunlight and her lover downstairs: “Coming!”
She turned, lifted her skirt, and ran lightly toward the door.