We always used to blow up at each other over things like this.
But this time, I said nothing.
"Got it."
Claude glanced at me with a flicker of surprise, but it wasn't long before his phone rang.
It was Rita Vance, rushing him.
He threw on a jacket and bolted out the door without so much as a goodbye.
It was always like this. The second Rita called, he'd drop every plan he'd ever made with me.
He'd left me alone in a hospital bed with a hundred-and-four-degree fever and didn't show his face for an entire week.
Even in bed, he'd shove me aside to answer her calls, pull his pants on, and say he had to go "meet a client."
And whenever I got upset, it was always the same line: It's for work. You're being petty. You're jealous. You're making a big deal out of nothing.
I tossed my phone onto the couch and walked out to the balcony for some air.
The breeze brushed my cheeks, but it did nothing to quiet the storm inside me.
Sitting in my inbox was an offer from a company overseas. My supervisor had put in a referral for me.
I'd been on the fence about accepting it. Now, it seemed like the only option left.
"I'll take the offer. I'll come in tomorrow to handle my resignation."
"I fully support this! Marlene, with your talent, you were always too good for this place."
My supervisor replied almost instantly. I stared at the words on the screen, feeling strangely hollow.
Click. The front door opened.
"The reunion's over already?"
Claude strolled in humming a tune, the faint smell of alcohol trailing behind him.
He walked toward me with a grin, but the moment his eyes landed on the hospital admission slip on the table, his expression froze.
"Claude, don't you think you owe me an explanation?"
His footsteps halted at the entrance to the living room. His gaze drifted to the slip on the coffee table.
"You went through my things?"
That was the first thing out of his mouth. Not an explanation. Not an apology.
An accusation, dripping with indignation.
His cold stare seeped into me, freezing me from the inside out. I drew a deep breath and forced myself to stay calm.
"Yeah. I went through your things."
"And if I hadn't, I never would have known you went behind my back to get a vasectomy."
Even as I spoke, I could hear the tremor in my own voice.
I swallowed the hurt and the rage, holding myself together by sheer willpower as I faced him.
"I'm busy with work. I'm at a critical point in my career. I don't want kids right now."
Claude's voice was level. Flat. Not a trace of emotion.
Meanwhile, I was the one falling apart like a lunatic.
"Something this big, and you didn't think you needed to discuss it with me?"
I jabbed my finger at the slip. "Claude, if pregnancy and childbirth are my career risk to bear, then what was the point of getting a vasectomy behind my back? What was it really for?"
My voice climbed higher with every word, sharp with fury. All it earned me was the stone wall of his expression.
He snatched the slip off the table with a look of pure irritation. "Marlene, having a baby isn't something you women get to decide on your own."
"If I want one, I'll have one. If I don't, nobody's forcing me."
The words landed, and then, right in front of me, he tore the slip to shreds.
Scraps of paper drifted to the floor. I sat there as if standing on a sheet of ice, trembling from head to toe.
My eyes burned. I turned my head away, the pain too much to look at him.
"Claude, I want a divorce."
The vast living room sank into silence.
The thought had crossed my mind more times than I could count.
But saying it out loud? That was the first time.
"Over this? You're asking for a divorce over this?"
"Marlene, are things really so bad that you have to blow everything up? Don't you think I've been working hard for this family too?"
"For this family?"
I cut him off, stood up, and looked down at him.
