“Ethan,” I said. “I’m going to ask you one question. And I’d like you to answer it honestly. For once.”
He said nothing.
“Yesterday morning. At the graveside. You leaned over and you whispered in my ear. ‘At least your inheritance can finally solve some of this family’s problems.’ Do you remember that?”
His mouth opened. Closed.
“I was standing next to my father’s coffin,” I said. “It hadn’t even gone into the ground yet. And I stood there and I thought, he doesn’t even wait. He doesn’t even wait until the dirt’s on.”
“Lydia…”
“Did you love me? At all? In three years? Even once?”
He looked at me for a long moment.
I watched the lie come up behind his eyes. I watched him decide on it. I watched him get ready to say it.
“Of course I did,” he said.
But he said it half a second too late.
And I’ve spent my whole life reading numbers.
I stood up.
My legs felt strange. Like they belonged to somebody braver than me. I pushed back my chair, and I walked around the long mahogany table to the head of it, where Martin was sitting.
Martin handed me a blue folder without saying a single word. He’d had it ready. I’d called him at six that morning and told him what I wanted, and he’d had Denise type it up before I even got there.
“Thank you, Martin.”
“Of course, Lydia.”
I turned to face them. My husband. His mother. His brother, who was crying quietly into his hand at the end of the table.
“I’m going to say this one time,” I said. “And then I’m going to leave.”
They watched me. Ethan’s face had gone completely gray.
“I’m filing for divorce. Martin has referred me to a family law attorney in Kingston, and the petition will be filed this afternoon. I would have preferred to do this gently, Ethan. I really would have. But I think you’ve made gentleness impossible.”
“Lydia, please…”
Adrian Hawthorne is a celebrated author and dedicated archivist who finds inspiration in the hidden stories of the past. Educated at Oxford, he now works at the National Archives, where preserving history fuels his evocative writing. Balancing archival precision with creative storytelling, Adrian founded the Hawthorne Institute of Literary Arts to mentor emerging writers and honor the timeless art of narrative.