The marriage bed was a closed door. Every cold turn of her face was a no, and I'd raised it more times than I could count. Nothing changed.
My income was never enough. The number climbed every year, and every year she found someone earning more to hold over me.
After work, on weekends, on holidays, I wasn't allowed anything that looked like fun.
The moment I tried, I was lazy. Greedy. Sly. A man with no ambition.
Five years married, and the same excuse every time we talked about a child: I wasn't driven enough, I didn't make enough.
You can't breathe in air like that. After a while you stop knowing why you're alive at all.
Meanwhile, she'd picked herself a cushy job paying three hundred a week, the kind where she could stream shows and scroll videos all shift.
Off the clock, it was poker or the spa.
Shopping and travel were holiday non-negotiables.
That double standard, I was done swallowing it.
"Marcie hasn't had one good day since she married you. Where do you get the nerve to ask for a divorce?"
My mother-in-law was still going, and I glanced at the gold bracelet on her wrist. I'd bought that.
She and my father-in-law came from a small town, and I was the one paying their health coverage and their retirement plans, topped up to the max.
Three thousand a month in household money, every month, straight to them.
As for Marcella's jewelry, there was a piece for Valentine's, for her birthday, for our anniversary, for Christmas, every year, never once skipped.
I didn't know what hardship they'd suffered. I knew even less about whatever hardship Marcella had supposedly endured with me.
Maybe the worst of it was the iced Americano.
Whenever I went back to her parents' place with her, my mother-in-law's mouth never stopped, this son-in-law cleared a fortune in some deal, that daughter just bought herself something nice.
Her family was a hole with no bottom.
I looked at her. "I came here to talk this through. Can you keep your mouth shut?"
She shot up from her chair, eyes bulging.
"Oh, the world's gone upside down. A live-in son-in-law telling me to shut up? Marcie, take a good look at what you dragged home."
She jabbed a finger at me. "If this is how you act with us sitting right here, God knows how you treat Marcie when no one's watching."
"If that's the attitude, then I'll see you in court." I stood to leave.
"You stop right there. Is this what your parents taught you? Do we, your elders, even register to you?"
"Mom, that's enough." Marcella rushed to step in front of her.
"Your parents should be here soon," my father-in-law said then. "We'll sort it out together when they arrive."
A divorce was too big to hide from my own parents. Since they'd already called the two of them over, fine, we'd all sit down and lay it out plainly.
I'd barely settled back into my seat when my parents arrived.
"You're finally here," my mother-in-law said, pulling a long face. "This Duncan Fleming is no kind of man. You'd better get him in line. I said two words to him and he told me to shut up."
"A man with no respect for his elders. Only Marcie has the patience to put up with him."
"Anyone else would've divorced him a long time ago."
My father didn't bite. He just looked at me. "You're sure?"
"Yes."
"Then divorce her."
My mother-in-law's face went uglier still. "What's that supposed to mean? I called you here to talk them out of it."
"Talk them out of it?" My father looked at her. "I haven't seen you do much talking out of anything."
"And while we're on respect for elders, does Marcella have any for me or her mother-in-law?"
"Five years married. Has she once come back to see us for a holiday?"
"In all that time, has she ever called me Dad? Called her Mom?"
"Only the people who gave birth to me are my parents. Is it a crime that I won't call you Mom and Dad?" Marcella's temper flared too.
"Then divorce her." My father said it again. "On this, I stand with Duncan."
