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 He dragged it out for a long while, fished out his phone and scrolled through it, and finally admitted he'd withdrawn a little over three thousand last year, claiming it was to fix up the house back home.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

"What about that first love of yours?" I asked.

He went quiet. His hand came off the door panel and slid into his pocket, his shoulders sinking a little.

"Gone?" I asked again.

"She went back." His voice was faint, his eyes on the floor, the toe of his shoe scuffing the ground twice.

It was still that same pair of old leather shoes, the toes worn pale, nobody around to polish them anymore.

"Went back to her husband?"

Ethan's head snapped up, his eyes red. Not about to cry. Furious.

"Did you have someone dig into me a long time ago?"

"No need to dig. A man like you, who else would want you besides me?"

The words left my mouth and even I paused.

There was a time I didn't dare so much as breathe loudly in front of him. Whatever he said went. I didn't have the nerve to talk back.

Ethan stared at me for a long moment, his eyes rimmed red, his throat bobbing once.

"Joan, let's get remarried."

Someone walked past in the hallway, carrying a bag of groceries, the plastic rustling.

The motion-sensor light went out again. Ethan's face dimmed, then brightened a moment later.

"I won't be like that anymore," he said. "Saving money, wasn't that for this family too? That son of mine, I couldn't help it. She insisted on having him, what was I supposed to do? I—"

"When did it start with the two of you?"

"What?"

"I'm asking you. When did it start with you and Peggy Perry."

His lips trembled, but no words came out.

"It never ended, did it."

I said it flatly.

The corner of Ethan's mouth twitched. His face cycled through several expressions before settling on an ugly smile.

That smile hanging there was harder to watch than tears.

"Fine. You already know everything, so what are you even asking for?"

He said, "Back when I married you, it was because her family wouldn't agree to us. She married someone else, I lost heart, and I married whoever happened to be there. I admit it. I wronged you."

I listened to all of it and couldn't say what I felt.

"Are you done?"

"Joan—"

"If you're done, then go."

I pulled the door toward me. He shot out a hand and held it open, with a lot more force than before.

The door panel jammed into me, pinching my arm, and the pain pulled a hiss out of me.

Ethan let go and stepped back half a pace.

"You really found someone else?" he asked.

I didn't answer.

"Is he rich?"

Still I didn't answer.

"Joan, it's been what, a few days since the divorce, and you've already lined up your next stop. Did you have him lined up all along?"

I looked at his face, the face I'd looked at for five years. The brows, the eyes, the nose, the mouth, I knew every part of it, could have drawn it with my eyes closed.

But looking at it now, it was as foreign as a stranger's on the street.

"Get lost," I said.

The door shut, the latch clicking into place. I leaned my back against it. Out in the hallway Ethan stood there a while, then his footsteps headed toward the stairwell.

Not the elevator. The stairs.

The footsteps grew fainter and finally faded out.

The phone on the couch lit up. A message from Christian: What do you want for dinner tonight, I'll bring it over.

I didn't reply. I went to the kitchen and poured a glass of water. It was cold, chilling me from my throat all the way down to my stomach. The window was open, the breeze lifting the curtain, the hem of it brushing the stovetop. There was nothing on the stove, clean as if no one had ever lived here.

The doorbell rang again.

I thought it was Ethan coming back, and stood by the door without moving.

The bell rang once more, then came a knock, not heavy, very even. Tap tap tap, a pause, tap tap tap.

"Miss Fox?" It was Christian's voice.

I pulled the door open. He stood in the doorway, groceries in one hand, a plastic bag in the other with two cartons of milk inside. When he saw me, he looked me over, his gaze settling on my arm.

"What happened to your arm?"

I glanced down. The spot where the door had caught it had flushed red and was already turning blue. I said it was nothing, that I'd bumped it by accident.

He didn't press. He carried the groceries in and set them on the kitchen counter. Leafy greens poked out of the bag, chives, baby bok choy, and a block of tofu.

"Ethan was here?" he asked.

I said nothing.

He took the groceries out one by one, set the tofu in a bowl, bundled the chives upright in a water glass like a flower arrangement. When he was done, he turned and looked at me.

"If he comes again, you call me."

"No need. I can handle it myself."

Christian looked at me for two seconds, then let it go. He put the milk in the fridge. It was nearly empty inside, the two cartons sitting on the top shelf, looking lonely.

"Porridge for dinner okay?" he asked.

"Sure."

He tied on an apron and started washing the vegetables, water rushing from the faucet. I stood in the kitchen doorway watching his back, the broad shoulders, the straight spine. His hands weren't fast, but they were careful, washing leaf by leaf.

"Christian," I said.

He shut off the water and turned around.

"Why would you want a woman who's just divorced and has a kid?"

He thought for maybe two seconds, then said, "Because I'm raising a kid on my own too."

Then he turned the faucet back on and went on washing.