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?”

"Yeah. You?"

"Yeah."

After that the car went quiet. He didn't put on any music, so the inside of the SUV stayed still and silent.

I turned my head to the window. People came and went along the street, a breakfast cart steamed in the cold air, and an old woman led a small child across the road, the kid holding up a stick of candied apples.

We pulled up at a dumpling place. He handed me the menu first, then ordered a pot of tea for himself.

When the waiter came to take our order, I said you go ahead, and he didn't argue. He ordered three dishes and a soup, all plain home-style food.

When he was done he said, "I don't know what you like. Start with these. We can order more if it's not enough."

I poured him a cup of tea. His fingers were long when he took it, the knuckles clearly defined.

"How old's your daughter?" he asked.

"Four and a half."

"Mine's eight. Wild as a monkey. The teacher's calling me every other day."

The corner of his mouth moved when he said it. Not quite a smile, but the lines of his face did soften a little.

The food came, and he set a chopstick's worth of greens onto the little side plate by my bowl.

I froze for a second. He didn't explain it, just bent his head and kept eating.

When we'd almost finished, he took an envelope out of his pocket, set it on the table, and pushed it toward me.

I didn't take it. I asked what it was.

"Your mom said you don't have anywhere to live right now. That apartment of mine is sitting empty. The keys are yours."

I didn't move.

The envelope sat right by my hand, a development's logo printed across the top.

"I didn't say I wanted to move in."

"I'm not telling you to move in. I just want you to take a look. If you think it's all right, we register the marriage. If you don't, that's fine too. You stay there first."

He stood up to go pay, took a couple of steps, then turned back. "Don't read too much into it. I don't mean anything by it. I just figure it's not easy, a woman raising a kid on her own."

I looked at the envelope, picked it up, and turned it over in my hand.

It was heavy. There had to be something besides the keys inside.

The waiter cleared the bowls and plates, the chopsticks knocking twice against the table.

Outside the window, kids were running, their laughter high and sharp.

I tucked the envelope into my pocket, stood, and followed his back toward the door. His pace was neither fast nor slow, just right so I didn't have to chase him.

Three days after I moved into the empty apartment at the Henson place, Ethan showed up.

I didn't let him in. He stood at the door with a bag of oranges in his hand, wearing the jacket I'd bought him, the collar worn pale.

He'd never used to wear it. Said the color was tacky.

"I came to see the kid." He lifted the oranges.

"She's not here."

"I know she's at your mom's. I came to see you."

I leaned against the doorframe and didn't step aside. The motion-sensor light in the hallway clicked off, then on again, flickering. Ethan's face was a little swollen, a red mark along his jaw, like he'd been scratched by fingernails.

"What happened to your face?"

He touched his jaw and smiled, an ugly smile.

"Nothing. Bumped it."

I didn't call him out. That mark was obviously a woman's nails, long ones, the kind with a manicure.

"You've delivered your stuff. You can go now."

He reached out and braced a hand against the door, not with much force, but I didn't slam it shut either. He craned his head in for a look. The living room was empty, just one old couch that Christian had brought over. Ethan stared at that couch for a few seconds, his eyes narrowing.

"The new guy rent this place for you?"

"It's none of your business."

"Joan, you've been divorced what, a few days, and you're already living with someone else?"

His voice rose. Down the hall a neighbor's door cracked open, an old woman poking her head out for a look before pulling it back in.

I looked at Ethan, looked at him for a few seconds. He'd gotten thinner, his eyes a little sunken, his lips dry and peeling. I remembered how, back when his lips would get dry, I was always nagging him to drink more water, and he'd get annoyed and say he knew, he knew. His lips were still dry now. No one nagging him anymore.