Chapter 3

The next few days, I went to work and came home like clockwork, keeping my head down and carrying on as usual.

Between showing up at the office, coordinating with the agent to rent out the apartment, and handling the paperwork for my resignation handover, my life ran like a perfectly coded program, step by step, no deviations, moving forward without a hitch.

Charles never came home during that stretch, and he didn't call either. The only sign of him was the occasional string of messages he sent in the dead of night.

[Still giving me the cold shoulder?]

[Come on. That's enough. Don't just let this keep dragging out.]

[Big surgery this week. Consecutive cases. Won't be home for several days. Take care of yourself.]

I didn't bother opening a single one.

On Wednesday afternoon, I got a call I wasn't expecting. It was Charles' mother, Bertha Bennett.

I hesitated for a few seconds, but in the end I swiped to answer. "Hello, Bertha."

Her sharp, grating voice came barreling through the line before I could even finish. "Sarah! What kind of trouble are you and Charles stirring up now? He hasn't slept at home for days! You're his wife. Don't you have any idea how to care for your own husband?"

"He's been very busy lately, Bertha," I said.

"Busy?" she snapped. "Busy or not, he still needs to come home! Let me tell you something. Charles is the deputy chief of surgery. The hospital runs on him! He's out there fighting death on the operating table every single day.

"Do you have the slightest idea how much pressure he's under? Instead of comforting him, you walk around with a long face. What kind of wife acts like that?"

I clutched the phone tighter, the hard edge of the case digging into my fingers.

"That's not what I've been doing," I said quietly.

"What do you mean, not doing that?" Bertha fired back. "Charles told me everything. He says you spend all your time glued to that computer of yours, either staring at reports or sitting through video calls. You don't act like a wife at all.

"Tell me, what good is a career for a woman? Family is what really matters. And on top of everything, you still haven't given him a single child, not even a hint of a pregnancy. And you have the nerve to be angry with Charles?"

Each word landed like a tiny needle, barbed and stinging, prickling its way through my eardrums.

After three years of this marriage, I had grown so used to accusations like these that they barely registered anymore.

But Bertha wasn't finished. "Let me tell you something, Sarah. Don't be so ungrateful. Charles is a man with real ability and a future ahead of him. Plenty of young women have their eyes on him already.

"Take that Sophie in his department, for instance. She's pretty and sweet, and she actually knows how to take care of a man. She's always bringing him homemade soup. And you? What have you ever done for Charles?"

I took a breath and smoothed out my voice until it sounded perfectly plain and unbothered. "If you think Sophie is so wonderful, then tell Charles to marry her instead."

The line went quiet for a second.

Then Bertha's voice erupted again, even sharper than before. "What kind of nonsense is that? Are you hoping for a divorce? Let me make this absolutely clear. As long as I'm still breathing, that is not happening. Our family is not going to be disgraced like that!"

"That's not what I meant," I said.

"I think that's exactly what you meant. You don't have a shred of decency left. You keep carrying on like this and mess up Charles' future. Are you prepared to live with that?" Bertha shrieked.

I didn't bother responding and just ended the call.

And finally, there was nothing left but silence.

*****

I took the whole day off on Friday.

The movers arrived first thing in the morning, brisk and efficient as they got straight to work.

I stood in the middle of the living room, which already felt strangely empty, and watched as they carried the sealed boxes downstairs one by one.

My belongings didn't amount to much. They were just a few boxes in total, filled with clothes, shoes, bags, the books I had read over the years, and the project files from work.

Anything that belonged to Charles, I left exactly where it was.

His shirts still hung in the closet, his razor still sat by the bathroom sink, and his medical textbooks still stood in neat rows along the bookcase.

Little by little, the traces of me were being erased from this house.

One of the movers pointed to a box sitting on the very top shelf of the bookcase. "Madam, does this one need to go as well?" he asked. "Looks like it's been gathering dust up there for a good while."

I looked up and saw an old cardboard box that had been sealed shut for a long time.

Walking over, I pulled down a small step stool and lifted the box down from the shelf.

When I opened the lid, a few old things lay piled inside.

On top of everything was a thick, hardbound copy of Surgical Anatomy.

I had given that book to Charles as a gift when he was preparing for his graduate school entrance exam.

On the title page, in my own handwriting, was a short message, "To the future Dr. Bennett. May you always hold a light in your heart when you pick up the scalpel."

Back then, life had felt simple, and we had been so sure of everything.

I ran my fingertip gently across the cover and stood there in silence for a long moment.

"This one, too," I finally said to the mover. "Please take it along with the rest."

He gave a quick nod. "You got it."

Once all the boxes had been loaded onto the truck, the apartment fell into an eerie kind of emptiness.

Sunlight poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows and scattered across the floor in bright, uneven patches, but it carried no warmth whatsoever.

I took one last walk through the rooms, letting my eyes linger on every corner, until they finally came to rest on the shoe cabinet by the entrance.

My shoes were no longer there. Only Charles' dress shoes and running shoes remained, lined up alone on the shelves as if waiting for someone who might never come.

I walked over, pulled an envelope and a set of keys from my bag, and set them down on the coffee table in the living room.

Inside the envelope was the divorce agreement, already signed.

With that done, I didn't allow myself to look back. I grabbed my small suitcase and walked out of the place I had called home for the past three years.

The door closed behind me with a low, muffled thud.

Goodbye, Charles. Or rather, I should say, goodbye forever.