All My Waiting Ends in Emptiness

Sera has spent three years in the Blackwood family, married to Major General Gideon, a man whose calls are only notifications or commands and whose most frequent words to her are that he will not be back. When she goes to a military hospital for a late-term termination, the surgeon turns out to be Gideon's younger sister, Greta. Sera tells her the marriage is ending and that she has no intention of raising a baby alone.

At an award ceremony that evening, Gideon stands to greet Victoria Prescott, the widow of his late brother-in-arms, and turns his full attention to her while Sera sits beside him like glass. The next morning Sera asks her friend Audrey, a divorce attorney, to draft an agreement in which she waives the house, vehicles, savings and pension shares, wanting only a quick signature.

Back at the estate, her mother-in-law Genevieve has invited Victoria to dinner and tells Sera to instruct the kitchen staff to prepare two extra dishes, while Victoria smiles with the calm assurance of a woman who already considers herself the mistress of the house.