His Healing Touch novel · Chapter 5 of 24
Chapter 5: Four Words
I walked past Stewart onto the porch and took the envelope myself.
The man in the gray raincoat nodded and went down the steps.
Across the street a woman walking a spaniel slowed to a stop.
Beacon Hill is a street where everyone knows when the door of the cherry-red house opens.
Bradley spread his hands, wide and reasonable, for the audience.
"I didn't want to do it like this," he said. "But you didn't leave me a choice."
I tore the envelope open and read the first page.
Petition for Dissolution of Marriage.
Grounds: abandonment.
Under it, a paragraph in the lawyer's flat voice saying the petitioner's spouse had left the marital home during an "emotional episode" and "may require evaluation."
"An emotional episode," I said.
"You embarrassed yourself in front of my colleagues. I'm protecting both of us."
"You're protecting the cake."
Bradley's smile cracked at the corner.
"How did you find me here?" I said.
"The phone plan. I can see where your phone is, I'm still your husband."
"You tracked me."
"I worried about you."
"That's a lot of worry for someone who changed the locks."
The woman with the spaniel gave her dog a little tug and came three steps closer.
I folded the petition in half.
"I'll sign it," I said. "I'll sign every page and take every dollar that's mine. Two hundred and fourteen thousand."
"You can't prove that."
"I wrote it down every month for eight years," I said. "In pen. With the bank statements stapled in."
"Come home, Hallie. We'll sort this out privately."
"I'm not coming home."
The words felt like walking down a staircase I'd been afraid of since I was twenty-two.
Stewart had been standing a pace behind me.
He moved up now, not touching me, and put his shoulder between Bradley and the door.
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