Chapter 3

The next morning, I took a cab to my follow-up appointment.

The doctor was kind.

"Everything looks normal. You may still have some mild cramping and bleeding for another week or so. Try to get plenty of rest."

Rest.

Right.

I walked out of the exam room, and that was when I saw them.

Bryce.

Mara.

They were sitting side by side in the same hospital corridor.

An IV ran into Mara's arm, and her head rested on Bryce's shoulder. He had draped his coat over her like a blanket.

One of his hands cupped the IV tubing, using his own body heat to warm the fluid flowing into her vein.

The tenderness in that small gesture.

The care.

I stood frozen, watching my husband stroke another woman's hand while she slept against his shoulder.

In five years of marriage, he had never stayed that close through any illness of mine.

Not when a stomach virus left me dangerously dehydrated.

Not when I lay alone in our cold bed, shaking with a 103-degree fever.

He had never sat beside me this way.

He had never held my hand.

He had certainly never warmed an IV line for me.

I remembered one night I had spent in the ER.

The needle slipped out while I was half asleep. Blood backed up through the tubing and stained the IV bag red.

A nurse woke me with pity in her eyes.

"Ma'am, you really should ask a family member to stay with you."

I looked down at my phone.

The chat between Bryce and me was empty. I smiled anyway.

"My husband is very busy. I'll be fine on my own."

The nurse's expression said everything.

Now I stood in that corridor and watched Bryce kiss Mara's forehead to check her temperature.

Something inside me became perfectly calm and perfectly cold.

He was not a man with no time.

He simply had no time for me.

I turned away before either of them saw me.

Bryce did not come home until that night.

"She's fine," he said, dropping onto the sofa. "Just a viral infection. I took her home after the IV."

"That's good."

He glanced at me, apparently waiting for more.

I said nothing.

"Nadine." He cleared his throat. "I'll need the car this week to take Mara to her follow-up appointments. You'll probably have to take the train to work. That won't be a problem, will it?"

My car.

The car I had bought with my own money.

It was registered in my name, and I was still making every payment.

Bryce's miserable doctoral stipend barely covered his own expenses. He had not contributed a cent toward the car, yet he demanded it as though it belonged to him.

"Bryce." My voice sounded unnaturally calm. "I just had a miscarriage. I'm still bleeding, and you want me to fight the morning rush on public transit so you can drive another woman around in my car?"

His expression darkened.

"You don't have to turn everything into a crisis."

"A crisis."

"It's a car, Nadine. If you don't want to lend it to me, just say so. Don't turn it into some kind of test."

I stood, heat and fury churning through my chest.

"You want a test? Fine. When was the last time you asked how I was feeling? When was the last time you cooked a meal for me? When was the last time you looked at me without acting as if I were some burden you had to carry?"

"See? This is exactly what I'm talking about." He spread his hands. "You always do this. You take one small thing and turn it into..."

"For months, I packed your lunches, and you fed them to another woman. Food I made for you, and you let her brag about eating it right in front of me. You brought her into our home without asking. The day I lost our baby, you left me alone and drove to the airport to pick her up. And you still think the problem is that I'm overreacting?"

"Mara is a colleague! She recommended me for this lab. I owe her..."

"You owe her what? Your marriage? Our child's funeral?"

The last word hung between us.

His face went white, then red.

"I can't listen to this."

He grabbed the keys.

"I'm going out."

"Go." I pointed at the door. "Go to her. You always do."

He slammed the door hard enough to shake the wall.

I stood in the silence, breathing hard, my fists clenched at my sides.

Then I went into the kitchen, opened the cabinet where we kept important documents, and took out the divorce papers.

My hand was steady.

I signed my name.

That night, I booked a car for the following morning and began to pack.

I started with the things he would never notice were missing.

My winter coats. Old photo albums. The box of letters my grandmother wrote before she died. The little ceramic cat I had painted in college.

Then I packed the things he might notice but would never care about.

My books. The kitchen tools I had bought. The throw pillows I had chosen for the sofa.

By midnight, half my life was sealed inside boxes.

I stopped in front of our wedding photograph.

The two people in it looked so happy.

My white dress. His hand around my waist.

I picked up the frame and dropped it into the trash.

Then came the albums.

Trips, holidays, lazy Sunday mornings.

I tore out every photograph of us, piled them together, and watched them burn in the fireplace.

The matching mugs went next.

So did the anniversary cards that held nothing but his careless signature.

In graduate school, Bryce had spent three winter months handing out flyers on the street. He had nearly frozen his fingers to save enough for my ring.

I slipped it off and placed it on the coffee table.

I had not taken it off once in five years.

Not during our worst fights.

Not when I first learned about Mara.

Not even when I lost our baby.

Now my ring finger was bare.

Somehow, it felt lighter.

I kept packing until the apartment looked as though I had never lived there at all.