You Had This Divorce Coming novel · Chapter 3 of 24
Chapter 3: The Living Room
Anonymous photos and a taunting call arrive, Calvin tells her not to be tacky, and she tears the living room apart.
Elise took a taxi back to Linden Court, the villa she shared with Calvin.
The housekeeper and the maternity nanny were playing with the baby in the front hall.
They both stopped when they saw her face.
"Ma'am, what happened?"
"I'm fine," Elise said. "I'm hungry. Please make me something warm."
She took the baby from the nanny and kissed her soft cheek.
The tightness in her chest eased a little. She sent the baby upstairs for her nap.
The housekeeper brought a bowl of chicken soup to the dining table.
Elise had taken one spoonful when her work email chimed.
There was no name on the message and no text, only a set of photos.
Calvin was in every one.
He was beside Selena in a park. He sat by her hospital bed. He held a chair for her at a restaurant.
The photos ran from early in her pregnancy to the week of the birth.
The angles were clean and close.
Whoever took them had followed Calvin for weeks.
Elise went through them one by one. Her hand stiffened on the phone.
Then her phone rang from a number she did not know.
A bright, boyish voice said, "Did you see the pictures?"
"While you were pregnant and working yourself sick, your husband was glued to my side."
"Do you know how well he treated me? When my feet swelled, he rubbed them."
"He didn't want stretch marks on me. From my third month he put oil on me every day until I gave birth."
"And I knew that charm was your family's heirloom. I told him I wanted it for my son."
"He gave it to me without a second thought. That's how little he cares about you."
"So you've finally figured it out. You should leave him."
"A workaholic like you, with no softness and no charm, doesn't deserve a man like him."
The voice was young and light, almost cheerful. The words were poison.
Elise understood at once. The caller was using a voice changer so she could not record the call.
The pictures were from carefully chosen angles, meant to hurt her while hiding the sender.
The caller hung up before she could speak.
Elise had known about Selena for years. Calvin's aunt had adopted her from an orphanage, and she and Calvin had grown up like siblings.
But Selena had been married to Nolan for five years. She had a baby with her husband's name on it.
So why had Calvin spent a year flying abroad and lying, just to stay at her side?
Elise was still staring at her phone when the front door unlocked.
Calvin was home.
He walked straight to the dining table, sat across from her and took out his cigarette case.
He slid one out and held it toward her. "Want one?"
She did not answer.
He had forgotten that she had quit smoking for the baby. She had not touched a cigarette in two years.
He lit his own and stretched one leg under the table to nudge her knee.
"Was all that really necessary? Since the baby came, you've become petty. Unreasonable."
"Nolan is tied up on a classified project, and he can't come back."
"Selena is delicate and has always been high-maintenance. Nolan is my best friend. Of course I had to look after her more."
"I didn't tell you because I was afraid you'd be jealous. And look at you now."
Elise said nothing.
He reached across the table and rubbed her ear, the way he used to.
"You were never like this, Ellie."
"Don't turn into one of those tacky women who think giving birth lets them control their husband."
He had held his position for so long that he talked as if his word settled everything.
Yesterday she would have lowered her eyes. Today every sentence scraped.
She put her spoon down hard. "Calvin, do you hear yourself? Does any of that sound human?"
His face darkened.
"I'm speaking to you with restraint, Elise."
"You slapped me in front of a room full of people, and I haven't even raised it."
"Then divorce me," she said. "Every time I look at you, I feel sick."
"Our daughter is a month old and you're already saying that word?"
"Since when are you one of those vulgar women who throw it around when they're upset?"
"You remember you have a daughter?" Her voice shook. "I thought your heart was too full of somebody else's son."
Calvin stopped. He looked around the room as if he had just remembered, and searched for the baby.
That look burned her eyes.
"Don't bother," Elise said. "From the day I got pregnant to her first month, you never once asked about her."
"From now on she is my daughter alone. She has nothing to do with you."
"After the divorce, care about whoever's child you like. You do not get to touch mine."
She remembered the nausea and the prenatal appointments she had attended alone.
She remembered labor, the hemorrhage that nearly killed her, and not one person beside her bed.
What had kept her going was admiration for this man, and her own stubborn pride.
The man she admired had collapsed in her mind.
Nothing was left of him.
Elise stood up, picked up her bowl of soup and threw it on the floor.
"Don't gaslight me again," she said.
"I'm ordinary. I'm tacky. I'm not soft or charming."
"But I know right from wrong, and you don't."
She raised her middle finger at him. "We're done."
She flipped the dining table.
She tore the huge wedding portrait off the wall.
She pushed over the display cabinet, and every piece she had collected shattered on the floor.
Calvin stared at her.
The woman standing in the wreck of his living room was the one he had met five years ago.
She was all fire, all force, and sorry for nothing.
He had not seen her in a very long time.
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