My Husband's April Fool's Joke Came True novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: Divorce Papers
Monday; Kristen walks into Nordquist Freight's ninth floor in front of the staff with divorce papers; Taryn at the desk in red; Prescott mocks; Kristen tells him not to get in a car on the fourth; Taryn: "Maybe she's planning to inherit"; Prescott laughs and says he'll sign Thursday after the lake weekend; Ernest has security walk her out. Ends: Wednesday night Joan's call: Prescott has crashed on Route 9.
On Monday morning I took a personal day, put on my good grey dress, and walked into Nordquist Freight with a folder under my arm.
The ninth floor was open plan, glass on three sides, with the lake behind it.
Forty people were at their desks.
I walked past all of them to the desk outside Prescott's office.
Taryn Beauregard sat behind it in a red dress, one leg crossed over the other.
On the corner of her desk stood a framed photo of a little girl in yellow rain boots.
She had Prescott's chin.
I looked at it for a moment, and then I looked at Taryn.
"Good morning, Mrs. Nordquist," she said brightly.
"He's expecting you."
She said it.
She picked up her phone and held it level with her chest.
I thought she wanted a picture of my face.
I let her have it.
Prescott sat behind his big desk with his jacket off and his feet up on an open drawer.
"There she is," he said.
"Did you sleep on it? Are we past it?"
"We are," I said.
I laid the folder in front of him and flipped it open.
"Those are divorce papers."
"I've signed every page."
"I'm not taking the house or the cars, and I'm not asking you for anything."
"I want your signature, and then I never want to see you again."
The room outside had gone very quiet.
Through the glass I could see heads turning, and then turning carefully away.
Prescott took his feet off the drawer.
He laughed, but it came out shorter than the one at dinner.
"Kristen. Sit down."
"I'll stand."
"Your mother's bill is due on the first," he said.
"You know that. You know exactly how that works."
"I know," I said.
"Then stop paying it."
"I'll move her to the state hospital in Lansing if I have to."
"I'll drive up every weekend."
"They won't take her," said Prescott.
"She's too sick, and you know that too."
He leaned back and spread his hands, a man being patient with a child.
"You're upset, and I get it."
"I was a pig at dinner."
"Come home tonight and we'll talk."
In the doorway, Taryn gave a soft little laugh.
"Don't get in a car on Wednesday," I said.
Prescott blinked at me.
"I'm sorry?"
"Wednesday, April fourth," I said.
"Whatever you're planning, wherever you're going, don't drive and don't get in a car."
"Take a train, walk, stay home."
"I mean it, Prescott."
For a moment nobody said anything.
Then he started to grin.
"Are you planning my funeral?"
"I'm asking you to stay out of cars."
"She's planning something," said Taryn from the door, and she lifted her phone a little higher.
"Maybe she's planning to inherit."
A few of the people at the desks outside giggled and then stopped.
"Taryn," Prescott said, with no real heat in it.
I wanted to turn around and tell her what I knew.
I wanted to tell all of them that the man they were laughing with had three days left.
But a sincere lie only comes true for me when someone means it.
Telling him wouldn't change what he had said at dinner.
I had never once beaten it.
The only thing I could do was warn him and keep the warning on the record.
I had done that.
"Sign the papers," I said.
Prescott picked up a pen.
He tapped it against his teeth and looked at me over the top of it.
"Tell you what," he said sweetly.
"I'm taking Taryn and the baby up to the lake house on Wednesday night, a long weekend."
"I'll sign them Thursday, when I get back."
"Then you can go be as free as you like."
"Wednesday night," Taryn agreed, to the room, and smiled.
The elevator doors had barely opened when Ernest walked out of them.
He took in the folder, the staff, and my face, and he never raised his voice.
"Security will see Mrs. Nordquist to her car," he said.
Two guards walked me down the whole ninth floor, and I kept my chin up the entire way.
I spent Tuesday trying to call him, and he declined every call.
On Wednesday I drove to Brightwater and sat with my mother.
She had a window seat, a blanket with ducks on it, and a tin of butter cookies the nurses were not supposed to know about.
"That husband of yours must work himself to the bone," she said, pushing the tin toward me.
"Look at this room. Look at the care."
"I never worry, with him paying."
I took a cookie so she wouldn't see my face.
"He's something, all right," I said.
My mother patted my knee and told me about the old man in 14 who had learned to cheat at checkers.
I laughed in the right places.
Her bed was the reason I had smiled at Ernest's table for five years.
It was nine at night when my phone lit up beside the cookie tin.
JOAN, it said.
I knew what she was going to say before I answered.
"Kristen," she said, and her voice broke in the middle of it.
"It's Prescott. There's been a crash on Route 9."
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