The Wife They Burned novel · Chapter 11 of 32

Chapter 11: Divorce

I called him back at once.

"They can't do that," I said. "Twenty-two years."

"They did it, Mrs. Kendrick. Very polite about it. Gave me a box for my thermos."

"Do you need work?"

He laughed, short and surprised.

"I'm sixty-one. Who's hiring?"

"The hospital," I said. "Lantern House needs a night man on the door. Starting Monday. The pay is worse and the coffee machine hates everyone."

There was a long quiet on the line.

"Is the lady with the red glasses still there?"

"Joy? She'll be your boss."

"I'll take it," he said.

I hung up and called a lawyer.

I'd found her through the video.

She'd sent a message the week it went up.

Twenty years of family law, all of it on the side of the person with less money.

If you ever need me, I'm cheap.

She was cheap.

She was also sixty, five foot nothing, and she said the word prenup like it was something she'd scraped off her shoe.

"Seven years married, no misconduct proven, a prenuptial agreement you signed at twenty-four without your own lawyer present," she said, reading it at Lantern House's kitchen table. "They'll offer you nothing and they'll mean it."

"I know."

"You could fight it."

"With what?"

"With a gate log," Joy said, from the stove.

"Not yet," I said.

The lawyer looked from Joy to me, and didn't ask.

On the eighteenth of November we went to Stamford.

Kendrick Marine had the top three floors of a glass tower by the water.

I'd been there maybe ten times in seven years, for holiday parties, in dresses Marshall picked out.

The receptionist knew me.

She looked at my flat boots and my hair up and didn't know what to do with her face.

← Chapter 10 · All chapters · Chapter 12 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend