When I Cut Off the Payments, My Mama's Boy Husband's Family Panicked novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: Filed

"Jeff," I said. "You can have more than weekends."

The line went quiet.

"What?"

"She's your daughter. You can have Wednesday dinners too. If you show up."

I heard him put his hand over the phone.

When he came back, his voice was thick.

"I'll show up."

We signed on Friday afternoon in a conference room at my lawyer's office.

It had a long table and a bowl of mints nobody touched.

Jeff came in a clean polo, ironed badly, with his hair combed wet.

He'd brought his own pen.

My lawyer slid the agreement across the table and went through it line by line.

The house would go on the market. Jeff would live there and pay the mortgage until it sold, and catch up April and May. Whatever was left after the sale, we'd split down the middle.

Evie would live with me.

Every other weekend with her dad, and Wednesday dinners.

Jeff read every page.

He'd never read anything all the way through in six years of marriage.

He read this.

At the custody page, he stopped and looked up.

"Can I take her to the zoo? On my first weekend?"

"You don't have to ask me that."

"I know," he said. "I wanted to."

He signed.

I signed.

Then he took off his wedding ring, looked at it, and put it in his pocket instead of on the table.

"Mom bought it," he said. "I'd rather give it back to her myself."

In the parking lot, he held the door of my car for me, awkwardly.

"Julie."

"Yeah?"

"The guy on the dock. Lyle."

I waited.

He looked down at his shoes.

They were new. Cheap ones. He'd never gone back for the others.

"He looks at you like you're the smart one," he said. "You are. I just never said it."

He walked to his SUV before I could answer.

On Saturday evening my mother put a pie in my hands at the front door.

Strawberry rhubarb. Still warm. Wrapped in a dish towel.

"What's this for?"

"For whoever you're going to see in that dress."

I looked down at the dress.

It was green, with little buttons down the front. I hadn't worn it since before Evie.

"I'm just going to say thank you for the playground."

"Uh-huh," my mother said. "Evie's sleeping here. Your father's making pancakes in the morning. Take your time."

"Mom."

"Go, Julie. The pie's getting cold."

Behind her, my dad called from the living room without looking up from the TV.

"Bring the dish back!"

The gravel drive crunched under my tires.

The big white house at the front was dark.

At the back, under the trees, Lyle's porch light was on.

← Chapter 14 · All chapters · Chapter 16 →

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