Gordon slid the divorce agreement across the coffee table toward me.
Every clause was printed in neat rows, and someone had even gone to the trouble of highlighting the signature lines in fluorescent marker.
“I know I'm the one who wronged you. This apartment and everything in our savings account, consider it compensation for the three years you gave me. If you ever run into trouble down the road, you can still come to me.”
The look on his face while he delivered that speech was so sincere he could have been filming a charity PSA.
Cheating repackaged as sacrifice. Abandonment dressed up as responsibility.
I lowered my eyes to the agreement.
Under the property division section, the apartment we were sitting in went to me. The savings, he hadn't claimed a cent.
“See? Gordon's walking away with nothing and leaving you the apartment. Take it, be smart about this, and don't push your luck.”
May chimed in from the side, dripping with passive-aggressive sweetness.
I looked up, first at Gordon's face arranged into its guilty-conscience expression, then at his mother's, radiating the magnanimous air of someone bestowing a favor.
I didn't feel like wasting another word. I picked up the pen and signed my name on the agreement without a second of hesitation.
Gordon visibly froze.
He'd probably rehearsed a whole speech of consolation, maybe even mapped out a strategy for handling my tears and my screaming.
But I didn't give him the performance.
“You……don't do this just to spite me.”
My swiftness had thrown him off balance, and he was scrambling for footing.
“Spite you? You're giving yourself way too much credit.”
I tossed the pen onto the table. “Somebody's lining up to take out the trash for me. My only regret is I didn't buy firecrackers to celebrate.”
May nodded, satisfied, and set down her teacup as she stood.
“Good that you know your place. Go file the paperwork tomorrow. Don't drag your feet.”
He thought he was about to cash in on a government demolition payout, so he was in a rush to kick me to the curb.
What he didn't know was that the property actually slated for demolition was my family's three old tile-roofed houses and the two courtyards in Clearwater Village South District.
At prime downtown compensation rates, that came to at least fifteen million dollars.
May was right about one thing.
From here on out, we really weren't in the same league anymore.
First thing the next morning, we went to the courthouse and filed for divorce.
By law, there was a thirty-day cooling-off period before it could be finalized.
Gordon couldn't wait. That same afternoon, he sent people over to move his things.
He didn't pack his own bags.
His true love, Kathleen Summers, came to do it for him.
I sat on the living room couch cracking sunflower seeds, watching a strange young woman rifle through my bedroom for my husband's underwear and socks. The whole scene was so absurd it was almost funny.
Kathleen wasn't exactly pretty, but she had a built-in fragility, the kind that made men want to shield her from the world.
When she passed by me, she stopped, her voice small and timid：“Hey, sis.”
I spat a sunflower shell into the trash can.
“Don't claim relatives you don't have. My mother had one daughter, and she sure didn't give me a pregnant little sister.”
Kathleen's eyes reddened instantly, and the tears came on cue.
Gordon happened to be walking out of the study with an armful of books. The moment he saw her face, he pulled her behind him.
“Anna! If you've got a problem, take it out on me. Picking on a pregnant woman, what kind of person does that make you?”
I rolled my eyes.
“Picking on her? I didn't lay a finger on her. You two are standing in my apartment packing up your little affair, and what, you expect me to roll out a red carpet and hand you a trophy?”
Gordon had nothing to say to that. He let out a cold scoff, grabbed Kathleen by the arm, and walked out.
The deadbolt clicked shut, and the apartment went completely silent.
I sat alone on the couch, staring at the wedding portrait on the wall.
Gordon and I had been high school classmates.
Back then his family had nothing. He wore the same cotton jacket all winter, washed so many times it had faded to gray, and at lunch he never ate more than a bread roll with pickled vegetables.
