He Signed His Divorce Without Reading It, Now He Kneels novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Slap
At Franklin's funeral Lorna slaps Iris, Colin takes it and holds her, and Genevieve does not move; that night Genevieve slips a divorce petition in with the house forms and Colin signs without reading.
The slap rang across the whole church.
My mother-in-law had crossed the aisle, and now Iris was holding her cheek.
That same morning she had tucked a scarf around my neck and pressed a thermos of tea into my hands.
Two hundred people sat frozen in the pews.
My husband was on his feet before the sound had faded.
He put himself in front of Iris, and his mother's second swing landed on his face instead.
He didn't even turn his head. He pulled Iris into his chest and murmured into her hair.
"I've got you. Nobody touches you."
I stood in the front pew with the funeral program in both hands.
I didn't move.
I watched the whole church look from them to me, the wife, to see what my face would do.
My face did nothing.
Three years of marriage had taught me exactly how much my husband, Colin, loved her.
The night his brother died had taught me the rest.
That was Franklin, Colin's older brother and Iris's husband. He had been dying in the house for fourteen months, and I was the one who sat with him through the last of it.
That final night, Franklin asked for his brother.
I went down the hall and found Colin in the kitchen with Iris, his arms around her, his mouth against her temple.
"Franklin is asking for you," I said.
"Give me a minute. She's falling apart."
I went back up and held Franklin's hand myself.
He was gone before Colin came.
Now the pastor was whispering that the service could continue, and my mother-in-law, Lorna, was shaking out her stinging palm.
"She kissed my son at the eulogy," Lorna said to the church. "Her own husband was not yet in the ground."
Iris cried harder. Colin held her tighter.
Nobody had handed me a tissue, so I took one from my own bag.
An older man in a gray suit stepped up beside me while the pews were still murmuring.
He was Franklin's lawyer. He had a long envelope in his hand, and he pressed it into mine.
"He asked me to give you this at the funeral and no one else."
Franklin's handwriting crossed the front: Genevieve. Open the day you're free.
I looked up. The lawyer had already turned away.
I put the envelope in my coat pocket and left it there.
The drive home was silent until Colin parked in the garage.
"Iris is staying with us for a few weeks," he said. "She can't be alone in that house."
"All right."
"Mother's furious with her. She'll want to blame somebody else, so keep out of the way. Manage it quietly, would you? You're good at that."
I looked at his cheek. It was red from his mother's hand, and I thought of how he'd taken it.
I didn't feel anything. That was how I knew.
That evening Iris sat in my chair at the kitchen table in one of my sweaters, and Colin brought her tea.
I carried a folder to the counter.
"I need your signature on the house forms," I said. "The property tax, the insurance, the bank access. The usual."
Colin didn't look up from Iris. "Where?"
I opened the folder to the first flag.
The divorce petition was the sixth page of nine.
My lawyer had told me to give it to him with the rest, the way I'd handed him everything else for three years. I had never once seen him read a page.
He signed the first form. The second. The third.
"Is this the one with the new bank?" he asked, and signed before I answered.
He reached the sixth page and signed it too, in the same easy loop as the others.
He signed every page after it.
Then he closed the folder, patted it twice, and smiled up at me.
"You're the one thing in this house I never have to worry about, Gen. Thank you for being so easy."
I took the folder to my study and called my lawyer.
"He signed all nine," I said.
"Then it's filed first thing Monday," she said. "Ninety days, sealed, and he never has to hear about it unless he reads his mail."
"He doesn't read his mail."
Through the study door I could hear him laughing softly in the kitchen, and a spoon stirring Iris's tea.
So I stepped out of my marriage with no scene, and he never noticed I had gone.
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