After the miscarriage, I clung to Donald Henson in a way I never had before.

Every day I asked him, over and over, whether he blamed me.

I asked for two whole months, and every time he calmed me with the same patience, the same gentleness.

Then, in the third month, an anonymous voice message arrived.

I opened it, and out came Donald's irritated voice:

"I never wanted the kid anyway. It's just as well it's gone."

"She doesn't deserve to be Mrs. Henson. Asking, asking, asking, all day long, like she's out of her mind. I really regret marrying her."

The teacup in my hand hit the floor with a crack.

Shards flew up and cut into my calf, but I felt no pain at all.

So this was what five years of marriage had turned me into, in Donald's eyes.

Fine, then. Donald, I don't want you either.

1.

By the time Donald came home, I had been sitting in the living room for a long while.

The divorce agreement lay on the table. My luggage stood in the entryway.

He walked in, caught sight of the suitcase, and his face darkened.

"Lottie Payne, what are you making a scene about this time?"

"I've told you again and again, I don't blame you for the baby. It was an accident. Why can't you let it go?"

That word, "blame," he'd said it for two whole months.

Before, I always thought the problem was mine, that losing the baby had left me with some kind of trauma.

Only now did I understand. I wasn't being difficult. It was the impatience buried under his eyes every time he said he didn't "blame" me, that stripped away any sense of safety.

So I asked, again and again, and never once got any real comfort.

I lowered my head and gave a soft, bitter laugh.

"You don't blame me because you don't love me, or because you don't care?"

"What?"

He hadn't caught it. His handsome brows drew together.

"Nothing."

I smiled and slid the agreement across the table to him.

"Take a look at this. If there's no problem, sign it."

His eyes dropped to the paper.

The words Divorce Agreement made his pupils shrink.

"You want a divorce?"

I gave a low "Mm."

He asked again, "Why?"

Why, I wondered.

Maybe because he came home later and later. Maybe because of those strange little provocations that kept finding their way to me. Maybe because every time he came home, the exhaustion and distance in him grew heavier and heavier.

I couldn't name the exact reason.

But I knew none of it mattered anymore.

"Because I don't love you anymore."

His fist tightened in an instant.

The rigid line of his body gave away his anger.

I heard him say my name. "Lottie."

Full of warning.

He was warning me that I'd pushed too far.

Before, if he'd said my name in that tone, I would have backed down at once.

But today, I was stubborn.

I stubbornly held my head up, stubbornly met his eyes, stubbornly asked my question.

"Hm?"

He froze.

After a long silence, he gave in, the way he always had.

The same as he had for the past eight years, he sighed helplessly, then crouched down in front of me.

My cold fingers were wrapped in warmth.

He lowered his voice.

"All right, Lottie. I know losing this baby hit you hard, but we can't stay drowning in the pain forever, can we?"

"Come on now, no more of this. Let me carry you back to the room to rest, okay?"

I didn't say no.

I only looked at that too-handsome face of his and slowly drew my hand back.

"Donald, I'm not making a scene. I really am divorcing you."

"Lottie, divorce isn't a game."

He closed his eyes, then opened them again, and this time there was irritation in them.

My heart felt like it had been pricked by a needle.

So he couldn't keep up the act anymore?

I turned my face away and answered him.

"I know. That's why I never brought it up before."

"Then why bring it up today?"

I was silent for a moment, my lips tightening bit by bit.

"You really want to know?"

He gave a bitter smile. "You've already asked for a divorce. At least let me die knowing why."

He had a point.

I nodded and pulled my phone out of my pocket.

The audio was in my inbox.

I opened it, downloaded it, and hit play.

Donald's voice came out of the phone again.

"I never wanted the kid in the first place. Now that it's gone, that's just as well."

"The way she is now, she doesn't deserve to be Mrs. Henson. Asking, asking, asking every single day, like some lunatic. I really regret marrying her."

Three short sentences, and his face went white in an instant.

"I never said those things."

I curved my lips bitterly.

"Eight years together. Your voice, your tone, not even an AI could fool me."

That was why, the moment I got that recording, I was certain Donald's heart had changed.

He sank to the floor, swallowing hard, the motion heavier than before.

"Yes. Yes, I said it."

"But Lottie, that was just me venting once in a while!"

"When couples hit a rough patch, it's normal to complain to a friend. There's no need to take it all the way to divorce."

I found it laughable.

"A friend?"

"What kind of friend lets you complain to her and call your own wife a lunatic?"

"What kind of friend lets you sit there without a shred of shame and say you regret marrying me?"

Donald said nothing.

His lips were pressed tight, nearly a flat line.

It seemed he wouldn't sign today.

That was fine. There was plenty of time.

I slung my bag over my shoulder and stood to leave.

Donald came after me, doggedly, and caught my arm.

"Where are you going?"

"None of your business."

I tugged, but couldn't pull free.

"How is it none of my business? We're married!"

I laughed softly.

"Not for much longer."

That only angered him more.

He yanked my wrist, pulling me close, his eyes bearing down on me.

"It was two sentences. And you have to blow it up into all of this?"

I didn't dodge. Instead I lifted my head and looked straight into his eyes.

"This isn't me blowing it up."

"Then what is it?"

"It's me, done with you!"

Donald laughed in fury.

"Fine, fine, fine. Lottie, you've really grown a spine."

"You want a divorce? Fine, I'll give it to you!"

He stormed back, snatched the agreement off the coffee table, and signed his name without even looking at it.

Once he'd signed, he threw the pen down and flung the papers in my face.

"Get out. Get out and don't come back. Don't expect me to coax you like before."

The agreement slid off my face and onto the floor. I crouched to pick it up, and hearing his words, I laughed in mockery.

Donald, this time, I won't be coming back.

And I won't be waiting for you to coax me again, either.

I got out, and I took the papers with me.

Paige Matthews was waiting downstairs.

The second I stepped off the elevator she took my suitcase from me and steered me toward her car.

She didn't say anything until my seatbelt was on and we'd pulled out of the complex.

"Did you and Donald have a fight?"

I leaned against the window. The scenery kept sliding backward, and it made me a little dizzy.

I shook my head weakly. "No."

"Then you..."

"I want a divorce!"

"What?"

Paige slammed on the brake.

The car behind almost rear-ended us, then swerved around, the driver cursing out the window.

Paige rolled her window down, apologized over and over, then pulled her head back in.

"What happened? Did Donald cheat on you?"

I looked at the worry on her face and stayed quiet.

I didn't know what to say.

Donald and I had always gotten along well.

He was willing to smooth things over with me, willing to spend money on me.

Paige had teased me more than once, calling Donald a boyfriend who treated me like a doted-on daughter.

He was patient enough, and he spoiled me enough.

And yet a man like that could, one day, complain to an outsider that his own wife was a lunatic, that he regretted marrying her.

Maybe my face was too miserable, because Paige suddenly didn't want to hear it.

She turned back to the wheel and waved a hand at me.

"Okay, okay, if you don't want to talk about it, we won't."

"Rest for a bit. I'll get you home."

The car started moving again.

I leaned back against the window, but my eyes couldn't settle on anything.

That night, after a shower, she and I lay under the covers.

With the lights off it was pitch dark, and no matter what I did I couldn't fall asleep.

I said Paige's name.

She rolled toward me, and her answer came soft in the dark.

I waited a long time, long enough that her breathing had gone light and even.

Only then did I speak again.

"Paige, he said... he never really wanted that child anyway."

Paige shot up in bed.

"He said that to your face?"

"No. He said it to someone else."

"To who?"

I lowered my eyes. Something in my chest felt like it had been filled with dead, stagnant water.

"I don't know."

"That dog of a man. I'm going to call him and rip him apart."

She turned to feel for her phone on the nightstand, and I caught her arm.

I said, "Don't. There's no point."

Paige sighed and lay back down, still fuming on my behalf.

"You went through all that suffering to give him a child, and he can say something like that?"

"If he didn't want it, why didn't he say so back then?"

"Putting you through all that for nothing..."

If there was anything about these five years married to Donald that hadn't gone smoothly, it was the matter of having a child.

We'd gone to every hospital, big and small, and never once found out why I couldn't get pregnant.

The days went by, one after another, until Donald's mother couldn't sit still any longer.

She called the two of us back to the old house and suggested we try IVF.

Donald didn't refuse.

After that, we started going in and out of hospitals constantly.

The first time I came out of the operating room, my whole body felt hollow, my face drained white.

Donald was terrified. He said we should stop.

Seeing how much it hurt him, how could I keep letting him carry that weight?

So from then on, whenever I went to the hospital, I had Paige come with me instead.

Paige cried every time.

She knew better than anyone how much I feared the operating table.

Because my mother died on an operating table.

I was only five then.

Over and over, I forced myself past that enormous, bone-deep fear.

And in the end, he said... he never really wanted that child anyway.

I said, "Paige, I need you to look into something for me."