My Husband Called Me Disgusting

Chapter 6

My supervisor gave me a half-day off to sort out the passport paperwork for the fellowship. I spent the rest of the afternoon at the hospital visiting my mother.

I needed to tell her about Aveloria, and about the divorce.

I was sure she had noticed the change in Nathaniel. He had been devoted to her, more attentive in some ways than I was as her own daughter. He was the one who took her to her annual checkups every year. When she'd had her appendectomy, he was the one who waited outside the operating room while I was stuck at work.

So when she asked me about two weeks ago why Nathaniel had stopped checking in on her, I told her he'd been busy. She hadn't believed me. She just held my hand, her expression heavy. "Is he..."

She didn't finish the sentence. She didn't need to.

I handed her a peeled apple and finally said what I'd come to say. "Mom, I'm going to divorce Nathaniel."

She was quiet for a moment. Then she split the apple in two and gave me half. "All right. If he doesn't love you anymore, staying would only be suffering."

She was the only one who already knew.

I said a few words to the caregiver, waited until she fell asleep, and slipped out. In the hallway, I nearly stopped walking.

Through the window of the room next door, I could see Clara in tears, and Nathaniel with his arms around her, murmuring something softly. It took me a moment to understand: the woman in the bed was Clara's mother, lying there frail and pale, reaching out toward them.

She said her last wish was to see her daughter with a man worth trusting.

Clara took her mother's hand and said, through her tears, that she already had someone wonderful. Mrs. Bennett dried her daughter's eyes and asked to meet him.

I watched Clara lift her head and look at Nathaniel with a desperate, pleading expression.

Nathaniel steadied her, then drew her in by her slender waist. "I'm the one, ma'am. I'll take good care of her. Please focus on getting better."

Mrs. Bennett didn't believe it. She insisted Clara had just found someone to put on a show for her. Seeing Clara on the verge of breaking, Nathaniel tilted her chin up and brushed his lips against hers.

That seemed to be enough. Mrs. Bennett relaxed.

I stopped recording and put my phone away.

Funny. His actual mother-in-law was lying in the room next door, waiting for surgery in a few days, and here he was auditioning to be someone else's son-in-law.

A knock at the door. The doctor had arrived.

Nathaniel looked up and saw me standing in the doorway, my face perfectly still.

The color drained from his face. He stepped back from Clara, who had been nearly pressed against him, and for the first time I saw something in his eyes I had never seen before: fear. His voice came out unsteady. "Evie, what are you doing here?"