I thought about it, then said it was nothing, I'd just had enough.

My mother went quiet for a moment.

"His last name's Henson. Forty-two, runs a building-materials business. Lost his wife to pancreatic cancer last year, left with an eight-year-old girl. I've met him myself. Honest sort. Just doesn't talk much."

"Fine."

"Don't just say fine. Come meet him already."

I said okay and hung up.

The fluorescent tube in the hallway hummed, and my own shadow stretched across the floor, thin and long and dingy gray.

I looked down at the shoes on my feet, soles worn nearly flat.

I thought of the shoes on the feet of Ethan Whitney's first love's son. Seven thousand dollars.

It wasn't that I knew anything about brands. It was that when Ethan crouched down to tie the boy's laces, the saleswoman standing nearby said, "You've got a wonderful eye, sir, this is the last limited-edition pair in the store, seven thousand."

Ethan stood up and reached for his card.

Five years of marriage, and he never once bought me a pair of shoes over forty dollars.

One winter I had frostbite on my feet and wanted a thicker pair of snow boots. He dragged me out of the store right in front of the clerk, saying, "You've got athlete's foot, don't go spreading it around."

I didn't have athlete's foot. He just didn't want to spend the money.

The ER door opened, and a nurse came out to say the girl had spiked to 104, they'd given her a fever shot, and she was under observation.

I nodded but didn't stand up.

Down at the end of the hall someone wheeled a gurney past, the wheels rumbling, the person lying on it perfectly still, a white sheet drawn all the way up to the chin.

I stared at that white sheet for a few seconds, and a thought came to me out of nowhere: how nice it would be if that were me up there.

My phone buzzed.

A message from Ethan, two words: Get back.

I didn't reply.

Another one: Who's making dinner?

Still nothing from me.

The third message came fast on its heels: Don't push your damn luck.

I flipped the phone over and pressed it face-down against my knee. The old man down the hall came by again to pour me a cup of water, saying, You don't look well, miss, should I go get a doctor?

I said no, thank you, sir.

He sighed and shuffled back, his slippers slapping against the floor.

A little past eight, my daughter woke and mumbled for her mommy. I leaned in close, and her little hand clutched my finger, her nails tiny, pink and white.

She said it hurt. I asked where, and she said her hand hurt.

The nurse said it was where the needle had gone in, and told her not to move it.

I bent down and kissed her forehead. Still hot, but not as frightening as before.

Her eyes stayed shut, and she mumbled something.

I leaned closer to hear. She was saying, "Mommy, can we not go back?"

I didn't make a sound.

I just held her little hand a bit tighter.

On the way out of the hospital I hailed a cab and gave the driver an address.

Not the address of home.

When my mother opened the door she froze, looking at me, then at the child in my arms, her eyes going red in an instant.

My father was in the kitchen cooking, the spatula clanging against the iron pan.

He didn't even turn his head. "Coming back was the right thing. There'll always be a place at this table for you."

I laid my daughter down on my mother's bed and tucked the blanket around her.

My mother followed me in, stood at the bedside watching for a long while, then asked softly, "That Whitney man, did he really never spend a single cent on this child?"

I said he had.

He'd bought a cake on her birthday once, a $3 one from the supermarket, and came home complaining that bakeries were crooks bleeding people dry.

My mother bit her lip and said nothing. In the kitchen my father turned off the burner and threw his apron down on the stove, his voice not loud: "Tomorrow I'm going to have a talk with him."

"No need," I said. "I'll handle it myself."

I sat on the old couch in the living room and dialed a number.

The line connected. I said hello, this is Joan Fox.

The voice on the other end said, Miss Fox, hello. I've been waiting a long time for this call.

It was Aunt Sherry, the distant cousin-aunt who had introduced me to Ethan Whitney all those years ago.

"Aunt Sherry, I need a favor. I want a divorce, but I don't have any evidence at all."

Aunt Sherry laughed, a knowing laugh. "Nothing at all? Don't be silly. That first love of his, the one who came back with her son. The boy's already that old. That means they never broke it off, not once. You're holding that card. What is there to be afraid of?"

I hung up. My mother leaned in and pressed something into my hand.

I looked down. It was a bank card.

"Your dad saved it up. Said it was for our granddaughter's schooling. Twelve thousand. Take it for now."

I didn't push it away. I closed my fist around the card and squeezed until it hurt.

My phone lit up.

Not another barrage from Ethan. A message from an unknown number.

Three words. See you tomorrow.

I thought it was spam at first, then scrolled down and saw the message my mother had sent. "Mr. Henson reached out to you."

So it was him.

I didn't reply.

My mother's lowered voice drifted out from the kitchen. "...that Whitney man is no good at all... the child burning up like that and he doesn't even care..." My father said something under his breath, too quiet for me to catch, but it made her go silent.

June coughed in the inner room. I pushed the door open. She'd already fallen back asleep.

The blanket had been kicked to one side, her little fists clenched tight.

I tucked the blanket around her again and sat by the bed for a while.

My phone buzzed.

A voice message from Ethan. I didn't open it.

Another text came right after. Fine, Joan, don't bother coming back. I'm tossing all your junk out tomorrow.

I looked at the message, set the phone aside, and turned off the light.

In the dark, June's breathing was steady and warm.

I stared at the ceiling, my eyes wide open.

The bare bulb in the hallway glared down, almost blinding.

I shut my eyes for a moment, and when I opened them again, there was nothing left in them at all. Wiped clean.

Early the next morning, my mother cooked rice porridge and steamed a custard of beaten eggs. June woke up, the fever mostly gone, her little face pale, but she could sit up and eat on her own now.

My mother fed her spoonful by spoonful. She opened her mouth obediently, and when she finished she even remembered to say thank you, Grandma.

My mother's eyes went red again. She turned her face away and wiped them.

My father went out as soon as he finished breakfast. On his way out the door, he said, "I've arranged to meet your uncle. We'll head over this afternoon."

I knew what my father was going to do.

My uncle was a lawyer who handled divorce cases.

I didn't stop him, but I said, "Dad. Don't lay a hand on him."

My father gave a grunt and pulled the door shut.

Close to ten o'clock my phone rang. It was Ethan's number.

I answered and said nothing.

He launched into a tirade on the other end.

I waited until he was done, then asked, "Your first love left? Is that why you finally thought to call me?"

There was a beat of silence on the line.

I'd caught Ethan flat-footed. He probably hadn't expected me to be so blunt.

After a few seconds, his voice rose. "You investigated me?"

"No need to investigate."

I said, "Your own son's already that old. The whole world could see it except me."

He didn't answer.

I asked him if he wanted the divorce.

"You're the one who brought it up, fine. Think it through. Once we're split, who's going to want you dragging that kid along?"

"Ten o'clock tomorrow morning. The courthouse. Don't be late."

I hung up the phone.

My hands didn't shake. My heart didn't race.

My mother heard me from the kitchen. She came out carrying a bowl of soup, stood in the doorway watching me for a long moment, opened her mouth and closed it again, and in the end said nothing. She set the soup on the table and turned back inside.

The next morning I got up early, dug out a clean sweater and put it on, and tied my hair back.

My mother insisted on coming with me. I wouldn't let her.

She said what if Ethan got physical, and I said he wouldn't dare, not outside the county courthouse.

When I got there, Ethan was already waiting.

He had on a jacket I'd bought him, his hair styled with gel, his shoes polished to a shine.

He saw me, looked me up and down, and his mouth turned down at the corner. “You're wearing that?”

I didn't answer. I just went in ahead of him.

The clerk asked how we wanted to divide the property.

Ethan pulled out his phone and started running the numbers. The house split fifty-fifty, the car to him, the savings divided evenly.

I asked him how much was in savings. He said eight thousand three hundred dollars.

I said that wasn't right. At the end of last year there'd been twelve thousand.

Ethan's face changed. “You're misremembering.”

“The bank statements don't misremember.”

The clerk glanced at him and told him to pull up the records. He dragged it out for a long while, fished out his phone and scrolled through it, and finally admitted he'd withdrawn a little over three thousand last year, claiming it was to fix up the house back home.

I didn't call him out. Where that three thousand had really gone, everyone knew perfectly well.

The child went to me. Child support was eighteen hundred dollars a month, calculated at the legal minimum.

Ethan tried to haggle even over that, asking if fifteen hundred would work, saying money was tight for him right now.

Even the clerk couldn't stomach it, telling him it was set by law and couldn't go below that figure.

He twisted his mouth and signed.

The whole thing took less than twenty minutes. The marriage certificate was traded for the divorce papers. Ethan stood up and left first, and at the door he turned back to look at me and said, “If you can't make it on your own, don't come crying to me.”

I told him not to worry.

Outside the courthouse doors, the sun was bright.

I stood on the steps and opened the divorce papers to look. In the photo my expression was calm, nothing like the day we'd taken the marriage photo five years ago, when the corners of my mouth had been turned up and the light in my eyes was something even a fool could see.

My phone rang.

It was Aunt Sherry.

“It's done?”

“It's done.”

“I'm free.”

“Good for you. I tracked down the address of that first love of Ethan's. He transferred her a good amount of money, and I got someone to pull the transfer records. There's also that house in his hometown under his name. He bought it before the marriage, but the mortgage was paid down with your joint assets after, so you can claim a share of that.”

I said I didn't want his money.

Aunt Sherry got worked up. “Are you out of your mind? Even if you don't want it, what about the child? What's eighteen hundred a month from that Whitney man good for? Two cans of formula and it's gone.”

I stood under the sun, the wind blowing past me, my eyes dry. I said I understood.

After hanging up, I dialed another number.

It rang twice on the other end before he picked up, his voice low and a little rough. “Miss Fox.”

“Mr. Henson, are you free today?”

“I am. Where are you? I'll come get you.”

I gave him the address.

He said he'd be there in fifteen minutes.

It was only after I hung up that I remembered my mother had said he didn't talk much. He certainly hadn't wasted any time answering, though.

The car arrived, a black SUV, scrubbed spotless. The window rolled down to reveal a face: a square jaw, eyes that weren't large but sharp and alert.

He had on a dark blue jacket, the collar neat and squared.

He got out to open my door, not looking at me much, not smiling either. Only once I was settled did he speak. “Have you had breakfast?”