ALMOST TOO LATE TO FIGHT

"Don't let her sign the divorce papers." Those were the last words my husband said before the crash. Now he's lying in a hospital bed, pretending he doesn't remember me. The pen was cold. Sera rolled it between her fingers, staring at the document in front of her. The words sat there, black and final on white paper. Petition for Dissolution of Marriage. Three years. That was all it had been. Three years of sitting across the dinner table from a man who looked at his phone more than he looked at her. Three years of saying goodnight to someone who was already gone before his head hit the pillow. Three years of slowly, quietly disappearing inside a marriage that had stopped feeling like one. She wasn't angry anymore. That was the worst part. The anger had burned out months ago. What was left was something quieter and more dangerous — acceptance. She was done. "Take your time," Patricia said from across the desk. Her voice was gentle, practiced. The voice of a woman who had sat across from many people in this exact moment. Sera almost smiled. Time. Right. She had given this marriage all the time she had. Two years of hoping things would change. One year of accepting that they wouldn't. Time was the one thing she had already run out of. She looked back at the document. Just sign it, she told herself. Write your name and walk out. Start over. Patricia slid the paper a little closer. "Right here." Sera leaned forward. She pressed the tip of the pen to the line. Her phone rang. The sound cracked through the quiet office like something had broken. Sera jerked back, knocking her elbow against the desk. She grabbed her phone without thinking. The screen read: Marcus Hale. Her stomach dropped. Marcus never called her. In three years of marriage to Dominic Hale, his personal assistant had spoken to her exactly four times, all of them work-related, all of them brief. Marcus did not call wives. That was not what Marcus did. "I'm sorry," she said to Patricia, already standing. She answered. "Hello?" "Mrs. Hale." Marcus's voice was tight. Too controlled. Wrong. "There's been an accident. Mr. Hale's car hit a barrier on the highway. He's been taken to St. Vincent's." The room tilted. Sera grabbed the edge of the desk. "Is he alive?" A beat. Half a second that felt like a year. "Yes," Marcus said. "But you should come now." She was already moving. She didn't remember ending the call. Didn't remember grabbing her bag. Didn't remember saying anything to Patricia. One moment she was thirty seconds from signing the papers and walking free. The next she was running through the lobby of a Manhattan law firm with her coat half on and her heart slamming against her ribs. He's alive, she kept telling herself. He's alive. That's all that matters right now. But underneath that, quieter and more honest, a second thought moved like a current. You were thirty seconds from being done. St. Vincent's smelled like antiseptic and bad coffee and something metallic underneath both. Sera stood just inside the entrance, breathing through her mouth. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. Nurses moved in and out of corridors. A child cried somewhere down the hall. She had never liked hospitals. They made everything feel urgent and fragile at the same time. Marcus was waiting near the far end of the corridor. She spotted him immediately — not because he stood out, but because he looked wrong. His tie was crooked. His sleeves were rolled up unevenly. There was a small smear of something dark on his left cuff that might have been grease or might have been blood and she didn't look closely enough to find out. Marcus was never disheveled. Ever. In three years, she had never seen a single hair out of place on this man. That told her more than his phone call had. "Where is he?" she asked. "Surgery," Marcus said. "They're still with him. The doctor will come out soon." "What happened?" Marcus walked beside her slowly, his voice low. "He was driving alone. Highway 9. The car hit the center barrier. Driver's side took most of the impact." Sera nodded. She didn't trust herself to speak. "He was conscious when the paramedics arrived," Marcus added. Quietly. Like he was deciding whether or not to say the next part. He didn't say it. "Okay," Sera said. They sat in the waiting area. Plastic chairs. A coffee machine in the corner that looked like it hadn't been cleaned since the building was constructed. A TV mounted on the wall playing news on mute. Sera stared at the screen without seeing it. She thought about the last time she and Dominic had sat in the same room and actually talked. Not about his schedule or her projects or the apartment or anything functional. Actually talked the way they used to, back in the beginning when everything was still new and neither of them had learned how to disappear inside their own lives yet. She couldn't remember when that had been. Months ago at least. Maybe longer. Were we ever actually happy? she thought. Or did I just mistake intensity for happiness and call it a marriage? Marcus handed her a paper cup of coffee. She took it without looking at him. They waited.