He Left Me at a Rest Stop on Halloween, So He Came Home to No Wife novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Signed

Her friend's lawyer brings the petition, two nurses witness it, and Cassidy signs from the bed. She has one more thing to do: be gone from the house before Travis gets home.

My friend from school was at the hospital by nine.

She carried a bag of my clothes from her own closet and a folder of papers with a lawyer's name stamped on it.

"He's a family lawyer," she said. "He did my divorce. He's already read what you texted me."

She sat in the chair by my bed and held my hand until I stopped talking.

I had told her the whole night on the phone at two in the morning, and she hadn't interrupted once.

"Okay," she said now. "Then we're going to prove him wrong."

The lawyer's folder had a petition in it, and a short stack of forms.

"Indiana has a waiting period after you file," she said. "But you can start the clock today. He just needs your signature on the petition. And he'll be served, and he'll have to answer."

"I can't go home," I said.

"You're not going home. You're coming to my place. The spare room is yours until the baby's here and then some."

"I don't have my purse."

"I'll get you a new card. Today. Sit."

A nurse came in to check the drip.

"Can I get two people to witness a signature?" I asked her.

"A what?"

"I'm signing divorce papers."

She stopped with her hand on the tubing.

Then she looked at my friend, and at me, and at the bed with the monitor belt around my stomach.

"I'll get the other nurse from the next room," she said.

They both came back with their badges clipped to their scrubs.

The first nurse held the clipboard flat on the rolling table.

The second nurse, who had been on the floor eleven hours and had red eyes from it, took the pen first.

"Are you sure, honey?" she said.

"I'm sure."

"Because I'd tell you not to sign anything on pain meds. Are you on pain meds?"

"No. Just fluids."

"Do you understand what you're signing?"

"Yes. I'm ending my marriage," I said. "I knew it before the ambulance came."

The second nurse was quiet.

"Hand me the pen," she said. "I'll sign right under you."

I wrote my name on the line.

Cassidy Ann Brewer.

I had used Brewer on every school form and every library card for ten years, and that was the first time in a long while that it felt like mine.

The first nurse witnessed it. The second nurse witnessed it.

My friend slid the pages back into the folder and held it against her chest.

"It's done," she said. "I'll take it down myself and have it filed before lunch."

I lay back.

It didn't feel like winning.

It felt like when the contractions stopped, and the room went quiet, and I could finally hear that I was still here.

There was a knock at the open door.

Eli stood there in a gray sweater, not his work jacket, holding a paper cup of coffee in each hand.

"I didn't know if you'd want one," he said. "The doctor says no caffeine, so one of these is decaf and one is also decaf."

I laughed, and it hurt a little in my ribs.

"I heard what you said to the nurse," he said. "I wasn't listening on purpose. I'm sorry."

"It's all right."

"You're signing it here."

"I already did."

He nodded slowly.

"Good," he said.

My friend looked from him to me and then pretended she had somewhere to be.

"I'm going to go file this," she said. "Cassidy. Do not do anything brave until I get back."

She left the room, and the door swung half shut behind her.

Eli set one cup on the rolling table, careful not to bump the pen.

"What happens next?" he said.

"The doctor says I can go home tomorrow if the contractions stay quiet."

"Home where?"

"That's the problem."

I looked at the folder's empty spot on the table where the papers had been.

"My house is on Larkin Street," I said. "My wedding ring is still on my finger, my purse is in his car, and my money helped pay off that house."

"And?"

"And I want to be gone before he walks back through that door and tells me what I meant."

Eli was quiet for a moment.

"I've got Thursday and Friday off," he said. "I own a truck."

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