Chapter 2
390 Words
My mother called three days after the divorce.
"I heard you left him."
"Yeah."
"How much did you get?"
"Three thousand."
Silence on the other end. Three full seconds.
"Three thousand?" Her voice shot up. "You were married to him for five years, and you walked away with three thousand?"
"Yeah."
"Are you out of your mind? His family is loaded. Three thousand?"
I didn't explain. There was no point. Explaining never changed anything with her.
"Don't come home, by the way," she said. "Your brother's getting married next month. We're renovating the house. There's no room."
"I'd only stay a few days."
"A few days is too many. A divorced woman coming back right now—it's bad luck."
She hung up.
I found a rental in one of those urban villages on the edge of the city, the kind of place where the buildings leaned into each other like tired drunks.
Someone was throwing things. A child was crying.
The window didn't close all the way. Cold air seeped in through the gap.
I tucked the three thousand dollars under my pillow, lay down, and stared at the c***k running across the ceiling for a very long time.
Four days after the divorce, I started looking for a job.
Thirty-seven applications sent. Zero replies.
The reason was obvious: freshly divorced, still a wreck. Nobody wanted to bet on someone who couldn't even hold herself together long enough to focus on the job.
I stood outside the job center, watching people stream past in both directions, and realized I had no idea where I was supposed to go.
My phone rang.
It was an unknown number.
"Lena?"
The voice was familiar. Low, a little rough at the edges.
"It's Edward Landry."
Oh, my ex-husband's father.
For five years, I had called him Dad.
He was the only person in that family who had ever been kind to me.
He slipped me pocket money on New Year's, called to check on me when I was sick, and made sure Marcus’' mother made my favorite dishes whenever we visited.
Not that my former mother-in-law ever bothered to remember what I liked.
"Dad?" The word slipped out before I could stop it.
"Don't call me that." A pause. "I heard about the divorce."
"Yeah."
"Where are you? I'm coming to get you."
- Writer
