Chapter 4

The attorney responded to my email at 6:03 a.m. [I'm available for a video consultation at ten this morning. Please prepare your marriage certificate, a list of your major assets, information on any joint accounts, and records of recent payments that may become disputed.] I didn't go back to sleep. After sunrise, I gathered our marriage certificate, the documents for the house, our bank statements, and every record related to the European trip. Twenty years of marriage had been reduced to a stack of papers covering the entire dining table. At ten o'clock, the attorney, Erin, joined the video call right on time. "Are you certain you want a divorce, or do you only want to understand your options?" "I'm certain." My voice was calmer than I had expected when I said it. Erin asked me to briefly explain what had happened. I told her how Daniel had lied about postponing the trip, how he had changed the reservations without my permission, and finally about the photograph Sophia had sent me. When I finished, she cautioned me, "What happened on the trip can help explain why the marriage broke down, but property matters require evidence. Don't move money out of any joint accounts. Don't damage or remove anything belonging to your husband. Save every payment record, message, and notification showing changes to the reservations." "The eighty thousand dollars came from savings held in my name alone." "Save proof of where the funds came from as well," she said. "Also, if you decide to separate, you should arrange a place to live and establish your future contact information as soon as possible. You're pregnant, so stability and safety need to come first." After the consultation ended, I looked around the house where I had lived for twenty years. I had chosen the curtains in the living room and hung every photograph on the walls. A picture of the sun that Sophia had drawn as a child was still taped inside one of the kitchen cabinets. Boxes she had left behind before going to college remained in the storage room. I had once believed this was where Daniel and I would grow old together. Now, I only wanted to leave as soon as possible. I contacted the leasing agent for an apartment I had viewed a few days earlier. It was close to the hospital, had an elevator, and included a small room beside the bedroom that could be turned into a nursery. The agent asked when I wanted to move in. "Today." After signing the lease, I called a moving company. By the time the movers arrived that afternoon, Daniel still hadn't contacted me, but Veronica's social media account had been updated with new photographs from Paris. I didn't open them. I packed only my clothes, books, work materials, and personal belongings. I left the furniture we had purchased together untouched, along with everything that belonged to Daniel. After the movers carried the boxes out of the study, I returned to the bedroom and opened the bottom drawer of the nightstand. Inside was a dark blue travel planner. A year earlier, I had written on the first page: [Twentieth anniversary. Retracing the journey we took when we were young.] Every page after that was marked with dates and destinations. There were the restaurants Daniel loved, the museums Sophia was looking forward to, and the anniversary dinner that was originally supposed to belong to Daniel and me alone. I had even prepared a gift. It was a pair of cuff links engraved with the date, which I had planned to give him in Paris. I had imagined the moment the restaurant brought out dessert. He would recognize the photograph from twenty years ago, take my hand, and say we had finally made it to this day. I closed the planner and placed it inside a box. My phone lit up at that moment. Daniel had sent me a copy of their hotel bill. [Because you canceled the suite, we had to spend more than four thousand dollars. You'll reimburse me when we get home.] I stared at the message, and suddenly, so many things from the past twenty years made sense. It wasn't that he didn't know he would hurt me. He had simply assumed that no matter what he did, I would remain exactly where he had left me and absorb the consequences for him. I took off my wedding ring. A pale band remained around my ring finger. I placed the ring on top of the travel planner and left it behind. By evening, the final box had been carried into my new apartment. There were no curtains yet. The walls were bare, and the air carried the scent of a freshly cleaned room. I sat in the only chair in the living room and listened to the traffic passing outside. I took a photograph of the neatly stacked boxes in my new apartment, then sent Daniel a message. [I have moved out of the marital home and retained a divorce attorney. From now on, all matters involving the divorce and our property should be handled through our attorneys. We can discuss matters concerning the baby separately.] I paused before adding one more line. [That twentieth-anniversary trip was the last gift I will ever give this family.] Less than ten seconds after the message was delivered, Daniel called me. I didn't answer. He called six times in a row, then sent me a message. [Isabelle, don't threaten me with divorce. We're going to settle this when I get home.] I turned off my phone, stood, and opened the window of my new apartment. The evening breeze swept into the unfurnished living room. Daniel still thought I was merely angry. He had no idea that by the time he returned from Paris, the wife who had always waited at home for him, no matter how deeply he hurt her, would no longer be there.