Lake St. Claire

Can't breathe. Dead stop. This can't be real.

Gemini paced wildly, her heels clicking against the tile. She felt it all. Anger, being used, fear. She took a deep breathe in, and exhaled slowly. Maintaining her composure was a skill she had learned long ago and she had become used to being numb inside.

She knew this was coming, yet somehow she had tried to pretend it was all a bad dream. It was an embarrassment she never thought she would be dealing with and her brain wanted to do nothing but damage control, while her heart still clung to the image of the man she had married twenty years ago.

Divorce papers. She had often wondered if this was going to be her story, a failure even with all of her success. Her hand-selected husband, chairman of the board in her father’s company now, was to become her ex-husband.

Ok. Fine. She raised her chin and slanted her eyes. He wants a power move, she’ll give him a power move, was her thought.

In an uncharacteristic move, Gemini called for a car to drive her to the Detroit Yacht Club, where Parker kept his favorite possession; a sailboat his friends all admired. He took it out at least once a month, down the Detroit River and up into Lake St. Claire. Not this time. She would sell it before he could know what hit him. Or set it on fire. Or cry. She wasn’t quite sure, which was unusual for her. She had never cared for another person the way she had cared for Parker, in the beginning. She found him at university, his family was well-heard of Wall Street family, hers also - as she was an heiress to the GM conglomerate.

The black Lincoln arrived at her front door and drove her to the Detroit Yacht Club where Gemini stepped out of the car onto the cobblestone circular drive of the Mediterranean-style villa’s entry. The building was nothing short of grand and she had always admired it, but today it felt like a mausoleum for her marriage.

With steely determination in her eyes, she scanned the docks for her still-husband's sailboat. She spotted the empty dock, the boat wasn't there. Her eyes quickly scanned the horizon for the familiar flag with the family crest of blue and gold. There it was. Like an omen that she was always too late.

What would she have truly done anyway? Would she have set it on fire, like a Carrie Underwood song? Would she have begged him to remember they once loved each other? Would she snap, and commit a murder-suicide?

Gemini shook herself out of it, and breathed a sigh of relief that her temporary moment of panic was subsiding. The divorce was real. The sailboat on the horizon was the visual proof that the marriage was over. She sat in the rose garden of the yacht club, feeling nothing and everything at all once. Overwhelmed and defeated. Ok. Plan B then. Now to create a Plan B. The sun was setting in hues of orange and pink over the teal water of the Detroit River. The sun had set on her hopes for joy many years ago.

It had been a long time coming, and now it was here. Now Gemini would move forward in this social world on her own. She had been an heiress before she married the GM king, and she was still an heiress. She had homes all over the world, and felt almost at home with herself. Times were good for single women who aren’t afraid to stand up, so Gemini was going to be just fine.

She had begun the long journey home to herself and now she was on it solo. Yes, the sailboat on the horizon was the perfect image to fit this moment in her life. Goodbye, Parker.