Chapter Text
The sound of the phone ringing on the other side of the world was crackly and distant in Florence’s ear. Her hair blew into her face, aided by the fan running on the desk, turning back and forth. The sound of the fan covered up the noises from the street below, drifting up through her open window—people on their way to work or coming home, doing business, fighting with their lovers, laughing with their children. All so far away from her.
No one answered, and the voicemail message played. Florence hung up and tried again.
This time, on the fourth ring, she finally heard a click.
“Hello?”
“Hi,” she said. “It’s Florence.”
A long sigh. “Florence. We were worried,” said the deep voice. “No one has heard from you in weeks. And everything on the news—”
“I know. I’m sorry,” Florence said softly. She could feel the familiar prickle of tears at the back of her eyes, a feeling she had become very accustomed to in the last few weeks. “I’m fine. Relatively speaking.”
There was silence from the phone, but not—there was still the crackling, and then the sound of someone slamming on the breaks on the street far below, of arguing, and the fan blowing past her ear.
“The Russian…” he started, then hesitated, unsure how to proceed.
“It’s a long story,” she said. “I can tell you all about it when I get home.”
“You’re coming home, then?”
She sighed. “Well… my hotel’s air conditioning is broken. It feels like a sign,” she said. “I think Bangkok has had enough of me.”
“You know you’re always welcome. Cherie and I are leaving next week for the cabin for the summer, but you have full run of the house,” he said. “When can we expect you?”
“I have a flight for tomorrow. I’ll get to Boston at 9pm,” Florence said. “I think I’ll stay the night there and take a bus in the morning.”
“Not flying into New York?”
“No, not New York. The layover was longer that way,” Florence lied.
“Well, we’ll get your room ready,” he said. “Call us when you get to Boston.”
“I will,” Florence said. “Thanks, Dad.”
The click ending the line felt deafening. She replaced the phone on its stand and looked around the little hotel room. It was a far cry from the places she was used to staying in, when she traveled with Freddie and Walter, but—well, a lot of things were different now. This was just one. She was currently unemployed, for another. The cheap hotel room was only a symptom.
She’d thought that staying in Bangkok would bring her some sort of clarity. Maybe she would be better able to make sense of things with more time—maybe she could figure out why her life had fallen apart as spectacularly as it had. All it really accomplished was that she had probably set the record for most tourist attractions in the city to cry at.
She’d also cried on the phone with the airline, bless the poor woman on the other end. Something about it felt…
Florence was the last one here. Everyone else had left. Freddie, Walter, Anatoly—all of them were gone. But while she was here, it felt like it wasn’t over. She was living in the past, perhaps, but the past was a physical place and she could live there, at least for a while. She could still go to the restaurants she and Anatoly visited together, could still walk the halls of their short-lived hotel. Once she left, the spell would well and truly be broken. There would be nothing left.
She made the most of her last 36 hours in Bangkok. She didn’t think she would ever come back to this city again, so she did what she could—there were still a few restaurants in her Good Food Guide that she’d starred and never gotten around to going to, so she visited the ones that looked the most appealing. She saw one last temple, and increased her record by one. She’d wanted to do these things with him. They hadn’t had much time, but they had made so many plans. He wanted to do everything with her, and loved every idea she had.
She missed him so much it was suffocating sometimes.
Howard and Cherie met her at the house with open arms. They gave her space when she wanted it, which was most of the time. Being back in her old room was disorienting—it was hers once, through her troubled early years in this country, through a wide range of interests and teenage crushes, posters and dreams covering the walls once upon a time. Now it was a guest bedroom. She had a box of things in the closet, but most of her belongings…
Most of her things were in New York. She’d gotten along fine without them for weeks, but there was more to do in Bangkok. In New Haven… she’d spent enough of her life here. She didn’t want to do any of it. She stayed home, now, and watched TV, and ate dinner with Howard and Cherie, and drank.
The night before they left for Florida, Howard sat with Florence out on the back porch. They sat in silence for a while. He hadn’t said much to her about the championship, hadn’t asked any questions aside from those related to her well-being.
She knew it couldn’t last forever.
“Florence,” he started. He’d never been an emotionally expressive person, but Florence always knew he cared. “Are you going to be alright without us here? We can postpone.”
“No, no, you aren’t staying on my account,” Florence insisted immediately. “I’m going to be fine. I’m fine. Really.”
He looked unconvinced. “What’s your plan? You’re welcome to stay as long as you like, of course, but… it’s unlike you.”
He was right. Florence always had a plan, a goal. She was always going somewhere. What had happened to her? In only a few short weeks?
“I’m not sure yet,” she admitted. “My whole life is just… gone. I don’t even know where to start.”
“It isn’t gone,” Howard said gently. “You’ll find your way. Even when we’re at our lowest, we find a way to keep going.”
She thought about that for a long time. She would find her way—where? How? What was left for her? They left for Florida, and then Florence had to sit in this empty house by herself and wonder what had become of her life. It turned out, that was a lot less tolerable than she had expected.
What came next? What would the old Florence have done, the one who hadn’t had her heart shattered into a million pieces? What would she be feeling, what plans would she be making?
Florence searched for the wisdom of her past self. Only one course of action revealed itself to her.
She took the stairs up to the eighth floor.
The elevator was working, but she took the stairs anyway, in vain hopes of ridding herself of the anxiety and dread that was eating her alive. She had two empty suitcases with her, and more boxes in the rental car downstairs. She’d had a drink an hour ago, to help calm her nerves—it had gotten her inside the building, but its effects were starting to wear off just when she needed them most.
Her feet took her to the door without any input. She had walked the path thousands of times. It was plain and undecorated. The doorbell was there, waiting.
Florence took a deep, shaky breath, and knocked instead. She waited, listening for any sounds of movement.
Freddie unlocked and opened the door. He was working to keep his face blank, but she could see he was upset.
“Florence,” he greeted.
She gripped the handle of the suitcases tight. “Where’s Walter?”
“Out,” Freddie said. “Like you asked.”
“Good.”
She moved toward the door, and he moved aside to let her in. She’d needed him to open the door—she drunkenly threw her key into the Chao Praya weeks ago. Now, he’d fulfilled his task. She headed toward the bedroom, and threw over her shoulder, “you can go now.”
She didn’t hear anything for a while, and focused on the closet—anything that belonged to her, she grabbed and threw haphazardly into the suitcase. There were boxes of her things on the floor, and she dragged them out and put them on the bed. She went through the dresser, taking her underwear, her jewelry and trinkets. They couldn’t have been nice and done some of this beforehand, evidently.
She turned, and Freddie was leaning against the doorway, watching her. “I said you can leave,” she said.
“It’s my apartment,” Freddie said. Which, technically, was true. His was the name on the lease. “Why are you doing this, Florence?”
She stuffed a winter coat into one of the suitcases, struggling to close it. “I would have thought that would be obvious,” she said. “I need my things, and you don’t have any use for all these clothes.”
“You know that’s not what I meant,” Freddie said, a touch of pleading in his voice. “It’s been two months now, isn’t that enough? Why can’t you just come home?”
She pushed past him, dragging the suitcases behind her. The second one was mostly full. She was going to have to go back to the car soon. “I don’t live here anymore,” she said. “I can’t.”
“You could!” Freddie protested. “Look, didn’t I do everything you asked? We both made mistakes. We can look past them.”
Florence shook her head as she goes through kitchen cabinets, removing the set of expensive pots and pans she’d purchased. “You’re never going to understand it, Freddie. I thought I could explain it to you, but I don’t think I can,” she said.
“You could at least try!” he huffed. “Walter said—”
“Don’t,” Florence snapped. “I don’t want to talk about him.”
“Why not? What happened?” Freddie asked, frustration bleeding through in his voice. “Things were going great, and then out of nowhere—you fall in love with some other guy, who just happens to be my chess opponent, and now that he’s gone you still won’t come back! What’s the problem?”
This was exactly what Florence wanted to avoid, but she was in it now, and she was so, so angry. “It wasn’t out of nowhere, and the fact that you still can’t see that—we weren’t good for each other, Freddie. None of us! If you had any sense, you’d get out now!”
“I thought you loved me,” Freddie said, bull-headed. “You said you did.”
Florence swallows. “I did,” she said.
“And Walter?” Freddie asked.
She scowled. “I never want to see him again,” she said.
“Why?”
“You should ask him that,” she said, grabbing her suitcases. “I’m taking these down to the car. I’ll be back with boxes. If you still care about me at all, you’ll bring out my things from the study so I can get out of here as soon as possible.”
Freddie was quiet the rest of the time she was there. He did start pulling books off the shelves that Florence had brought into the relationship, but it was a murky endeavor. So many had been purchased together, or as gifts for one or the other. Florence left a lot of things she probably could have taken, focusing only on the important books—if it was easily replaceable, she left it.
He also helped bring a couple of boxes down to the car. There was one left; they rode the elevator back up to the eighth floor in silence. She grabbed the last box by the door.
“Drive safe. Traffic’s bad right now,” Freddie said, frowning at the floor.
“Thank you for your help, Freddie,” she said, short and professional. “You played very well at the tournament. I’m sure you’ll continue to do so.”
“How am I supposed to do that without you?” he asked.
“You already played without me, and you won,” Florence said. “You’ll do just fine.”
There was a sound from behind them, of a door opening, and before Florence could connect the dots, Walter came into view in his work pants and an undershirt. He didn’t look surprised to see her.
“Sorry. I thought you’d be done by now,” he said.
Florence saw red. She clenched her jaw so hard she could imagine it shattering—she wanted to rip him to pieces. The last time she’d seen him, her rage was mixed with shock and grief. Now, it was just rage. Every time she thought about their last conversation, she wanted to scream and throw things. To think he could have selflessly given her something without taking it back. To think he could have done anything for someone else without it benefiting him in some way—
There was nothing she could have said. The way she felt went beyond words. She took the door handle and slammed it behind her with all her might. It made a great crash like a pang of thunder; the way it echoed through the halls felt good.
The traffic was bad—it always was, but this was worse than normal. It took Florence the better part of an hour to make it onto 95, and she spent all of it with the radio up loud, just to cover up the sound of her screaming until her throat was raw.
New Haven wasn’t too far. Normally Florence would drive straight there, but today had been physically and emotionally exhausting. She was starving. She found an exit with a sign that had a few different options, and stopped.
Her wallet was in her purse, she realized when she got out of the car. She’d thrown her purse into the backseat back in New York. It was under boxes now. In the process of shifting those boxes to retrieve it, she knocked some of the contents out onto the pavement. Freddie had packed this box—it was haphazard. She picked up the books and magazines that had fallen out and replaced them in the box. Something on the magazine that landed on top caught her eye—Anatoly’s name.
It was a new issue. Florence hadn’t bought a chess magazine since the world championship. Anatoly’s picture wasn’t on the cover, but his name was there in bold. She snatched it up and flipped it open to the index. Her heart raced and her hands shook as she found the right page. It was an article about a big tournament in Greece that had concluded last week, and he’d—
He’d lost. Anatoly had lost. Badly. The second best chess player in the world, and he’d ended in the bottom half.
Florence sank to the ground, leaning with the bottom lip of the car digging into her back. She looked over the scores, uncomprehending. She read the article, which got harder and harder as tears blurred her vision. Her breath hitched. By the end, she was wracked with full-body sobs.
She couldn’t stop. The magazine wrinkled in her hands. Anatoly had been playing so well—he’d almost won the whole championship! And now—now—
Florence had ruined him, she thought hysterically. All of this was because of her.
She didn’t know how long she sat there in the parking lot. Long enough for her legs to go numb. No one came to ask her if she was okay. She went inside the restaurant with her hair in disarray and face still red and tear-streaked, still trying to steady her breathing. She ate a burger in her car and fended off tears the whole way back to New Haven. She cried unloading the boxes and suitcases into the living room of her adoptive parents’ house. She cried returning the rental car.
It was just like the last few weeks hadn’t happened. She’d thought she was starting to improve, but now—seeing Freddie and Walter in person again, and then hearing any sort of news at all about Anatoly? It was like she was back in Bangkok, like the knife had just been twisted. The grief was desperate and all-consuming.
She couldn’t live like this, she thought wildly at 3AM, now hours into her spiral. She’d gotten into the wine stores and finished off a bottle. She felt physically ill. She felt completely hollowed out. She couldn’t live like this.
Anatoly was a great player, Florence really believed that—he almost beat Freddie, which was no small feat. And then he fell in love with her, and they spent a full week in love, not playing chess, and then he’d lost. He said he couldn’t play in the west, that being away from home was ruining his game. But he was home now! Molokov said he had a bright future! How could he have still lost? He should have taken that tournament easily.
The only other variable was Florence. She had done this to him. She kept thinking it. For three days, she kept thinking it, and it kept making her break down. It terrified her. Why had any of this happened? Why had they fallen in love? How could either of them be happy this way?
On the fourth day, while she was watching TV and eating breakfast at two in the afternoon, an idea occurred to her. It was all she could think about. She couldn’t sleep for thinking about it. It terrified her, it brought tears to her eyes, and yet.
She couldn’t live like this.
On the sixth day, before dawn, she picked up the phone and made a call.