My Husband Regrets Divorcing Me novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Wrong Bed

Colin comes home smelling of another woman's perfume and laughs at the divorce papers; Selah finds his orientation on her Monday agenda.

Colin came home at two in the morning smelling of a perfume I did not own.

I was sitting at our kitchen table in Lawrenceville with a pen, a glass of water and a stack of paper.

He stopped in the doorway and loosened his tie.

"You're up," he said. "Peyton's hotel was farther than I thought."

"It's across the river. That's ten minutes."

"There was construction."

"Was there?"

He sighed when his mother called.

"Selah, don't make this a thing. It's my big night."

I slid the stack across the table.

The top page said Petition for Dissolution of Marriage, and my signature was already on the line.

He read the first sentence twice.

Then he laughed, a short surprised laugh, and sat down.

"You're serious."

"Sign it, and I'll go quietly. I don't want the car or the furniture."

"You don't want anything because you don't have anything."

He pushed the paper back gently, almost kindly.

"Babe, you freelance for rent money. Who pays the lawyer?"

"I do."

"With what?"

I looked at him across the cheap table I had bought on purpose.

I understood that he truly did not know me.

It hurt more than the curb.

"Did you hear the speech tonight?" I asked.

"The speech was great."

"You thanked a woman who left you at twenty-four. You did not thank your wife."

"You hate attention. I was being nice to you."

"By leaving me at the curb?"

His jaw tightened.

"My mother says you've been cold since the promotion was announced, and I thought she was being unfair. Maybe she's right."

"Your mother handed me her glass like I was a coat rack."

"She was stressed. It's a big night for the family."

He rubbed his face.

"Look, I start Monday. I can't have a messy divorce hanging over my first week."

"Let's talk after orientation," he added.

"You're not going to sign."

"I'm not going to sign tonight," he said. "You'll cool off. You'll be back by Friday, and we'll laugh about it."

He said it with such an easy, warm certainty that for a second I wanted to laugh too.

Instead I picked up the pen and capped it.

"All right," I said. "Monday."

He yawned and kissed the top of my head.

"There she is."

Then he went to bed, in our bed, and was snoring in four minutes.

I stood in the hallway and listened to it.

I had loved that sound.

I had loved the way he cleaned his plate and said thank you to waiters and folded his work shirts into perfect squares.

I had loved that he knew every driver's kids by name.

For two years I had been the quiet wife of a man I admired.

I had told myself the lie was a gift to him.

I had never once asked whether it was a gift to me.

I packed one bag.

I took my laptop, my father's watch and the sweater my grandmother knitted, and I left the wedding photo where it stood.

At the door I took off my ring and set it on top of the petition.

It made a small bright noise on the paper.

Then I walked out into the cold and caught a cab to Liberty Avenue.

The guard stood up when I came through the doors this time, and he did not pretend not to.

"Evening, Chair."

"Evening. Is the floor warm?"

"Ms. Mahoney had it opened at midnight, ma'am. She said you'd want your father's room."

The forty-first floor had been shut for two years.

My father's office still smelled like pipe tobacco and carpet cleaner, and his reading lamp still had a burned-out bulb that nobody dared replace.

I put my bag on the sofa where he used to nap on Sundays.

On the desk, squared to the edge, lay a single folder with a yellow sticky note in Fran's block letters.

MONDAY. READ THE FIRST LINE.

I opened it.

It was the board agenda, three pages, typed and stapled.

Item one said, "Welcome of the Chair, in person, first time in two years."

Item two said, "Executive appointments."

Item three said, "Regional VP orientation, Mr. C. Coughlin, 9:00 a.m."

I read item three four times.

Then I picked up the phone and called Fran, who answered on the second ring and did not sound sleepy at all.

"You want him in the room," I said.

"I want him to see the room," Fran said. "Your father would have wanted it done properly."

"He'll think it's a joke."

"Then let him think so until nine-oh-one."

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