My Ex Husband Wants Me Back

Facing Reality

The divorce papers remained on Sarah’s dining table for three days.

Mara had placed them there after opening Adrian’s envelope, then walked away before she could read more than the first page. Since then, the documents had followed her through the house without moving at all.

They were there when she made Noah breakfast in the morning. They were there when Sarah came home from work and dropped her bag beside the door. They were there at night, when the rooms had gone quiet and Mara could no longer distract herself with Noah’s bath, his stories, or the small tasks Sarah kept finding for her to do.

Every time she passed the table, she saw Adrian’s name.

Every time she saw Adrian’s name, she remembered the way he had looked at her in his office when he told her to leave.

By the fourth morning, Mara was sitting in front of the papers with a cup of tea growing cold beside her.

The house had not fully woken yet. Rain moved gently against the kitchen window. Sarah was upstairs getting ready for work, and Noah was still asleep in the room next to Mara’s.

For once, there was no one asking anything of her.

Mara opened the envelope again.

The lawyer’s letter was still on top. The words were formal and distant. Adrian Moretti had begun divorce proceedings. The enclosed documents required her signature.

She turned to the next page.

Their names were printed beside each other.

Mara Moretti.

Adrian Moretti.

The date of their marriage sat beneath them. Mara looked at it for a long time.

She remembered standing beside Adrian in the courthouse on that bright morning, wearing a pale dress and holding a small bouquet Sarah had made herself. Adrian had looked at her as though nobody else existed. When they signed the certificate, he had leaned close and whispered that he had waited his whole life to make her his wife.

Now she was staring at another document that would take that name away.

Her fingers rested against the page, but she could not bring herself to touch the pen.

Sarah came downstairs a few minutes later. She was dressed for work, her hair still damp from the shower. When she saw Mara at the table, she stopped in the doorway.

“You have been up for a while.”

Mara did not look at her.

“I could not sleep.”

Sarah walked over slowly and pulled out the chair across from her.

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

Then Sarah looked at the papers and asked, “Have you decided what you want to do?”

Mara swallowed.

“I am going to sign them.”

Sarah’s face changed, not with surprise, but with sadness.

“Mara.”

“I know what you are going to say.” Mara’s voice was quiet, but her hands had begun to shake. “You are going to tell me that I should take time. You are going to tell me that I should wait until I am less upset.”

Sarah reached across the table, but Mara moved her hand away before she could take it.

“I have waited for him for years,” Mara continued. Her eyes filled, and she looked down before the tears could fall. “I waited for him to notice that I was drowning. I waited for him to speak to me without making me feel ashamed. I waited for him to come back to Noah. I waited for him to love me the way he used to.”

Sarah said nothing.

Mara let out a breath that trembled on the way out.

“He sent our things here in boxes. He sent divorce papers without even calling me first. What am I supposed to wait for now?”

Sarah’s eyes softened.

“You are not supposed to wait for him.”

“Then I have to stop.”

The words seemed to exhaust her.

Mara lowered her face into her hands. For a moment, she could not hold herself together. She cried quietly, trying not to make a sound because Noah was asleep so close by.

Sarah came around the table and knelt beside her.

Mara felt her sister’s hand move gently over her back.

“I am sorry,” Sarah whispered.

Mara shook her head.

“Do not be sorry for me. I was the one who kept believing that if I tried harder, he would become the man I married again.”

“You loved him.”

“I still love him.”

Sarah went still.

Mara looked at her through tears.

“That is the worst part. He can treat me like I never mattered, and I still remember the way he looked at me when Noah was born. I still remember him holding my hand in the hospital. I still remember how safe I felt when he said we were a family.”

Her voice broke.

“But he does not look at me like that anymore.”

Sarah pulled her into her arms.

Mara leaned against her sister and cried until she had no tears left.

A small voice came from the hallway.

“Mommy?”

Mara lifted her head.

Noah stood there in his pajamas, holding his stuffed bear by one arm. He had clearly just woken up. His hair was messy, and he was rubbing one eye with his free hand.

When he saw Mara’s face, he stopped.

“Are you hurt?”

Mara stood quickly and went to him.

“No, sweetheart. I am not hurt.”

Noah looked at the papers on the table, then back at her.

“Why were you crying?”

Mara knelt in front of him and opened her arms.

Noah stepped into them at once.

“Sometimes grown ups cry when their hearts are sad,” she said, holding him close.

Noah pressed his cheek against her shoulder.

“Can I make your heart better?”

Mara closed her eyes.

“You already make it better.”

He leaned back enough to look at her.

“Do you want pancakes?”

The question was so serious that Mara almost laughed through her tears.

“Yes,” she said, brushing his hair away from his forehead. “I think pancakes would help very much.”

Noah nodded as though he had solved something important.

He took Mara’s hand and pulled her toward the kitchen.

Sarah followed behind them, wiping quietly at her own eyes.

For the next hour, Mara let Noah cover the counter with flour. She let him c***k eggs into the bowl even though pieces of shell fell in with them. When he held up a strawberry and told her it looked like a tiny heart, she smiled and told him that it did.

Noah watched her carefully after that, as though he was checking whether the smile stayed.

Mara made it stay for him.

Later, when Noah was sitting on the sofa with Sarah and watching a cartoon, Mara returned to the dining table.

The papers were still where she had left them.

This time, she did not sit down immediately.

She stood beside the chair and looked at the blank line where her name was meant to go. Her heart beat so hard that she could feel it in her throat.

She thought about calling Adrian.

For one brief second, she imagined him answering. She imagined asking him whether he truly wanted this. She imagined him saying that he had been wrong, that he wanted Mara and Noah to come home.

Then she remembered his voice from the night he sent them away.

I want peace in this house.

She remembered the delivery truck outside Sarah’s gate.

She remembered Noah holding his drawing while Adrian told him he would look at it later.

Mara sat down.

The pen lay beside the papers.

Her hand trembled when she picked it up.

She signed her name once.

Then again where the next page required it.

With every signature, something inside her hurt. She was not relieved. She was not suddenly free of the love she had carried for Adrian. She still felt the weight of their marriage, the memories of the life they had shared, and the fear of what came next.

But she was no longer waiting for him to decide whether she deserved a place in his life.

When she finished, she placed the pen down and stared at her name.

Mara Moretti.

Soon, that name would no longer belong to her.

The thought made her chest ache.

From the living room, Noah called for her.

“Mommy, come and see. The dragon can fly now.”

Mara wiped her face and folded the papers carefully into the envelope.

Then she stood.

Her hands were still shaking when she walked toward her son, but Noah smiled the moment he saw her.

Mara sat beside him on the sofa and pulled him gently into her lap.

The dragon on the screen rose above a bright green forest. Noah pointed at it with excitement, explaining everything Mara had missed while she sat alone at the table.

She listened to every word.

For the first time since Adrian had sent them away, Mara did not look toward the front door.