Chapter 3
On the seventh day of the waiting period, the moving van pulled up at the front gate of the apartment complex.
Two suitcases and a bag of books didn't even fill up the trunk.
As the driver loaded the last item, he glanced back at me, standing alone on the sidewalk.
"Just you, ma'am? Need a hand with anything else?" he asked, his tone kind.
"No. This is everything," I said, my voice steadier than I felt.
As the van pulled out of the complex, I caught one last glimpse in the rearview mirror.
The seventeenth floor was dark—no lights on. James wasn't home.
*****
Susan picked me up and took me to my new apartment.
It was a two-bedroom, one-bathroom place, about 730 square feet, in a new complex on the west side of the city.
The rent was 1400 dollars a month.
Susan had found the place for me three months ago—one month deposit, three months rent upfront, and it was fully furnished.
"The landlord is a lovely elderly lady. When she heard you'd be living alone, she even left a microwave oven for you."
Susan led the way inside, her eyes constantly flicking back to read my face. "How are you holding up? You should rest."
Her attention settled on my midsection.
Now that my coat was off, even the soft wool of my sweater couldn't conceal the pronounced curve.
"I'm fine," I said, sitting down on the couch and resting my hand on my back.
At thirty-two weeks, the weight was a constant, gentle demand. Just walking a few steps left me breathless.
Susan pulled a stack of documents from her bag and set them on the coffee table.
"Business license, bank account, tax registration—all done," she said.
She flipped to a page and pointed it out to me.
"Bright Moments Media Ltd., legal rep Claire Evans, registered capital—150 thousand dollars," Susan said.
One hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That was all the savings I'd scraped together these past three years.
James had no clue about this stash.
He believed my salary dissolved entirely into our shared expenses.
The truth was, for thirty-six months, I'd quietly diverted 2500 from each paycheck into a separate account he knew nothing about.
That discipline alone yielded 90 thousand.
The rest came from freelance projects—strategy plans, presentation decks, marketing proposals—crafted at the kitchen table late at night after James had gone to bed.
Once, he'd gotten up for water and seen the light on.
"Still awake?" he'd murmured from the doorway.
"Couldn't sleep. Just watching something," I'd lied, my body shielding the laptop screen.
A noncommittal hum was his only reply before he retreated down the hall.
He never came close enough to see.
Susan sat down next to me and leaned her head on my shoulder.
"Claire, you're finally free," she murmured.
Silence was my only reply.
They were less dense here than in the east, softer, allowing pockets of darkness and calm.
Inside me, the baby shifted, a slow, rolling motion.
Maybe tonight was the first time in the past three years I didn't have to fake a smile.
*****
On the tenth day of the cooling-off period, Linda dropped by.
She wasn't there for me—she was looking for James.
I'd already moved out, but Susan got a text from a security guard she knew at my earlier apartment complex: [Your friend's ex's mother just showed up, and she brought a young woman with her.]
I didn't bother asking for details.
But that night, Susan couldn't help but tell me.
"The security guard said the woman looked about twenty-five, arm in arm with James' mother, chatting and laughing together as they walked in," Susan told me.
I knew who the woman was—Lucy White.
The name wasn't unfamiliar to me.
She was James' senior from the university, who had moved abroad after graduation.
Even before our wedding, Linda had mentioned her, "James had a classmate named Lucy back then. Such a lovely girl. Shame she went overseas."
Then Lucy returned last autumn.
At a family dinner, Linda made a point of bringing it up. "Lucy's back. She's an executive at a multinational now, pulling in a six-figure salary. Claire, don't you think you should push yourself a bit harder?"
Everyone at the table fell silent.
James' aunt tried to smooth things over. "Linda, Claire is wonderful too. She keeps such a tidy home."
Linda just scoffed, saying, "What good is tidy? It doesn't put food on the table."
On the drive home that day, James didn't say a single word in my defense.
Not a single word for the whole forty-five minutes on the highway.
I watched the streetlights flash by outside the window, counting them one by one. I got to 137 before I finally stopped.
It wasn't because we'd gotten home.
I just didn't want to count anymore.
So, Linda bringing Lucy to James now didn't surprise me in the least.
What really caught me off guard was when James texted me the next day: [My mom brought her over without telling me. I asked her to leave.]
I stared at the screen for ten seconds and didn't reply.
A minute later, another message came through: [Where did you move to? Send me your location.]
Again, I didn't respond.
His WhatsApp typing indicator flickered on and off, like he was typing and deleting, over and over.
In the end, he sent just one message: [Claire, don't be like this.]
I flipped my phone over, screen-down on the table.
I murmured, "What does he mean, 'don't do this'?
"Does he mean don't cry, don't make a scene, don't beg him to stay?
"Don't go off the script he wrote for me?
"Too bad—I'm not that Claire anymore."