Husband, Are You Going to Divorce Me Today

Chapter 2 The Conversation

Nathaniel didn't come home that night. He didn't come home the next night either. On the third day, I got another text.

Nathaniel: Dinner. Friday. My club. Seven o'clock.

Three days. He had given me three days to prepare.

I spent the first day in my studio. I hadn't painted in months, maybe years. The room was dusty, the brushes stiff, the canvases blank. But I opened a window, cleaned the brushes, and started to paint. Not the careful, muted landscapes I had learned to make for art school critiques. Something else. Something bright. Something angry.

By the time I finished, my hands were covered in paint and my back ached and I had no idea whether the painting was any good. But I felt more like myself than I had in years.

The second day, I went to the salon. I sat in the chair and told the stylist to strip out the dye. She looked at me like I was crazy.

"All of it?" she asked.

"All of it."

It took four hours. When she was done, I looked in the mirror and saw a woman with white hair cut short, almost to her chin. She looked older than I was. She looked tired. She also looked real.

I went home and tried on every dress in my closet. The blue one, the black one, the pink one I had worn to Nathaniel's birthday party last year. None of them fit the woman in the mirror. They fit the woman Nathan

I drove to the club in the pink dress because I had nothing else. The valet looked at me twice. The hostess looked at me three times. I walked into the private dining room like I was walking into a firing squad.

Nathaniel was already there, sitting at a table by the window. He looked up when I came in. His face did something complicated. Surprise. Confusion. And underneath it, something that might have been respect.

"You changed your hair," he said.

"I stopped lying about it."

He nodded slowly. I sat down across from him. The waiter appeared, took our orders, disappeared. We were alone.

"You're a different person," he said.

"No. I'm the same person. I just stopped pretending."

He was quiet for a long time. He looked out the window at the lights of the harbor. Then he looked back at me.

"Tell me everything," he said. "From the beginning."

So I did.

I told him about my father. How he had been the one person who ever understood me. How he had encouraged my painting, my dreams, my stubborn refusal to be what everyone expected. How he had died of a heart attack when I was twenty-one and how my whole world had fallen apart.

I told him about the months after. The crying. The inability to get out of bed. The way my mother had looked at me like I was broken. The way my sisters had stopped calling. The hospital. The medication. The therapist who had told me that grief was not a weakness, but I didn't have to believe her.

I told him about the day I woke up with white hair. How I had stared at myself in the bathroom mirror for an hour. How I had called a salon and made an appointment. How the woman who dyed my hair had said, "Honey, this is the most beautiful white I've ever seen. You sure you want to cover it up?"

I told him about meeting him. How he had come to the gallery where I was working as a receptionist. How he had looked at me like I was the most interesting person in the room. How I had known, even then, that he was looking at the woman I was pretending to be, not the woman I was. How I had let him anyway.

By the time I finished, the food was cold and the wine was gone and my throat was raw.

Nathaniel sat back. He looked at me for a long time.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked.

"I was afraid."

"Of what?"

"That you would look at me the way you're looking at me now."

He flinched. "How am I looking at you?"

"Like you don't know who I am."

He was quiet again. Then he said, "I don't."

I nodded. I had expected that.

"I don't know who you are," he said. "But I know who I married. And I know she's not the woman sitting in front of me." He paused. "I need time. To figure out what that means."

I stood up. "Take all the time you need."

I walked out of the club. I didn't look back. I had told the truth. Whatever happened next was not mine to control.

Three weeks passed. Nathaniel moved into his club. I stayed at the house. I painted every day. I started sleeping again. I even started eating.

Then one morning, I got a call from an unknown number.

"Eleanor Vance?" a woman's voice said.

"Yes."

"This is Ruth Barlow. I'm a lawyer. I represent your husband."

I gripped the phone. "What is this about?"

"Mr. Vance has filed for divorce. The papers were served to your home this morning. I'm calling to inform you of the court date."

I looked at the envelope on the kitchen counter that I had been ignoring. I had assumed it was a bill.

"I see," I said.

"Mr. Vance is offering a generous settlement. The house, the car, and a monthly stipend. He asks only that you not contest the divorce."

I stared at the envelope. "Tell him I'll consider it."

I hung up. I opened the envelope. The papers were there, all of them. Nathaniel's signature at the bottom. I read the terms. He was offering me everything. He didn't want a fight. He just wanted me gone.

I sat on the kitchen floor for an hour. Not crying. Thinking.

Then I stood up, walked to my studio, and started a new painting.