My Husband Bet I'd Crawl Back After Divorce

Him: [Then marry me instead. Why not?] The pen was still in my hand. I had signed the divorce settlement about thirty seconds earlier. Three years married.

Twenty years of knowing him. My husband wanted me to sign it to settle down the songbird he kept in a penthouse across town. A favor. Just for show, he said.

On the other side of that door, he was taking bets on me.

Once the state's ninetyday waiting period ran out, I'd cry myself stupid and then walk into the courthouse with him anyway and pick up the decree like a good girl. "Three months," he said. "Three months, tops.

She'll crawl back and beg." I held the phone with both hands. I typed one word. Me: [Sure.] Chapter 1 Him: [?] He answered in under a second.

I turned the screen face down against my knee.

Behind the door, the laughing kept going. "Okay, but if his girl actually goes through with it, drinks are on me all next month!" "Three months," Brody said. "Yes! Yes!

Yes!" The room broke up. I got out of there. Down the hall, past the desks, through the lobby doors before anyone looked up.

The sun on the street was white and flat and hit me straight in the eyes. That was when the crying started. Brody had his eye on a college girl who hadn't graduated yet.

He bought her an apartment in Seattle and filled it with things she never paid for. But she wouldn't let him kiss her. Wouldn't let him hold her.

She lived in thirtynine hundred square feet of glass and view, wore sixfigure couture, lifted her chin, and told him she was not going to be anybody's side piece.

Brody thought that was the funniest thing he had ever heard. This was the third time he had put me on a stage for her. The first time, he played the devoted husband.

I didn't know Sloane existed yet. I hung off his arm and let him take pictures of us all afternoon, happy about it.

He posted nine of them at once, and I refreshed and refreshed and could never find the post. Later I found out he'd set it to Close Friends only. There was one person on that list.

The second time, he picked a fight and left me on a curb downtown. He took a photo of me sitting there crying and sent it to her. Him: [See? Nothing I can do.

She falls apart without me.] The third time, he wanted a divorce. My phone buzzed against my leg. I dug it out.

Him: [Really?] Him: [You mean that?] Him: [Marguerite.] I wiped my face with the back of my wrist and laughed at the empty street. "Really," I said, out loud, to nobody.

That afternoon Brody drove me to the county courthouse, exactly like he said he would. He was in a great mood the whole way. He kept asking about our third anniversary.

Where did I want to go. What did I want to see. We grew up next door to each other.

This was the third year of our marriage. "How about Prague?" "You were seven and screaming about feeding the pigeons in the square." He got out, came around, opened my door, and leaned across to unbuckle me himself. "Hey.

You've been crying." His thumb ran along the corner of my eye. "I told you it's for show. She's a songbird.

I just want to see how long it takes her to put her head down." Something slid out of his jacket pocket while he was leaning over me.

A box of condoms, on the pavement, between my shoes. He cleared his throat and rubbed the side of his nose. He didn't explain. He picked them up and walked me inside.

Everything went smoothly. I have selective mutism. In front of strangers the words usually will not come out. But I can nod. I can shake my head.

The clerk went through both signed copies of the settlement. "Both parties here voluntarily?" "Yes," Brody said.

I nodded. "You've both reviewed the property terms?" "Yes." I nodded. "Joint petition's accepted.

There's a ninetyday waiting period in this state." She slid the receipt across the counter. "Come back in ninety days and pick up your decree." Brody took the filing receipt.

He didn't make it out of the lobby. He stopped under the seal on the wall, held the paper up, took a picture, and sent it somewhere. Three seconds later my phone buzzed too.

Same photo. Whoever forwarded it to me had typed something underneath it. Chapter 2 Sloane. Same as always. The picture Brody sent her, with a line under it. Him: [Happy now?

Be showered and waiting tonight.] I tapped her icon. Blocked. The second I finished, a ticket confirmation came through. And then a DM. Angel: [Ticket's booked.

Ninety days from now.] Angel: [I'll see you in Paris.] I dreamed about Brody anyway. Brody as a kid had the sweetest mouth in the world. "Margo, your eyes are so pretty.

Can I look at them while I talk to you? Like, always?" "Margo, you play so good. Can I come listen every single day?" "Margo, I like you the most out of everybody.

When we grow up I'm marrying you." I liked him too. We picked seats next to each other. We ran home together and stayed out until the streetlights came on.

I was even in his family's car the day my parents died. We were playing rockpaperscissors in the back seat. The two cars were too close together.

I watched the semi come across the median. I saw all of it. Then the sound. My dad. My mom. My brother. The dog I'd had since I was little. All of them still moving inside the fire.

I watched every second of it from the back seat. For a long time after that, nothing came out of my throat at all. I couldn't fall asleep unless Brody was in the room.

He was patient back then. Really patient. Every night he sat with me while I practiced sounds. He told me stories until three, four in the morning, night after night.

The first kid who called me the mute girl got punched in the mouth for it. Marrying him felt like the most natural thing that could ever happen to me.

The day after we got our diplomas he was at my bed at seven in the morning, chin on the mattress. "Margo. Let's go get one more piece of paper." We were married by that afternoon.

In the dream there were red roses across the floor of the first place we lived. He knelt on the bed and kissed me like I might come apart in his hands. Margo, he said.

We're going to be this happy for the rest of our lives. Then I opened my eyes and the room was black. I felt around for my phone. Sloane had sent another text. One photo.

A wrecked bed. One dark red smear on the sheet. My stomach turned over. I made it to the bathroom and heaved until there was nothing left but the water heaving puts in your eyes.

Then I sat down on the tile with my arms around my knees and stayed there.

I must have hit something on the screen, because in the middle of all that quiet a man's voice came out of my hand. "Marguerite?" Low. Careful.

I picked the phone up. "Soren… Ashford?" Soren was someone I knew from the program. Three years of speech therapy and trauma work, and my selective mutism got much better.

It only takes me now when I'm low, or scared. Two years into my marriage I was almost fine. I had time, and I was happy, so I joined an online peersupport group.

The person they paired me with was Soren. For two years I thought he was a girl. A pink rabbit for a profile picture. Handle: Angel. At the start, she barely answered me at all.

But you know your own kind. People who live with this usually got here through something ugly. They might not be able to talk. They still need somebody in the room.

So I kept sending her things. Every day, no matter what came back. Text, then voice notes. Then photos. Then video.

By the end of it we talked like old friends who had known each other forever.

Which is why, the first time we got on a call and I found out she was a he, I nearly stopped breathing on the spot. "I'm… sorry." I had both hands on the phone. "I woke you…" "You didn't," Soren said. "It's nine at night here." I sat on the cold tile with my mouth open and nothing coming out.

Where I was, it was three in the morning. Chapter 3 His speech was smooth now. Nothing snagged. That was only the second time we'd ever been on a call.

After I found out he was a man, I put distance between us on purpose. That day was pure accident. I hadn't messaged him in almost a month.

And of all the moments, he picked the one where Brody was sliding the settlement across the desk at me, and asked what I was up to. My brain went white around the word settlement.

I typed one word back. [Divorce.] After I signed, I stood in the hallway outside Brody's office with my whole body shaking. Me: [Soren.

I think I'm about to not have a home.] No dad. No mom. No brother. Not even the dog. And now not Brody. Me: [What do I do?] I did not expect what came back.

Angel: [Then marry me instead. Why not?] Inside the office the laughing kept climbing. "Be serious. Marguerite can't get a sentence out without Brody in the room.

She's not going through with anything." "Right?

Send her down there alone and she'll cry the courthouse down." "Yeah?" Brody made a sound in his throat and tossed his lighter onto the table. "She can cry herself into a puddle.

She's still my dog." "I point east, she crawls east." Through the gap in the door I watched a man I had known for twenty years and did not know at all.

Me: [Sure.] Soren sent me a list. Things to handle inside ninety days. Visa, lawyer, the obvious.

And then, packed in tight, line after line of restaurants I had to eat at before I left.

Angel: [There is no decent Mexican or barbecue in Paris.] Angel: [I'm serious.] At the top of the list, in smaller letters, he'd written one line.

Angel: [89 days until you get your decree.] I took the whole thing gladly. I went down the list one restaurant at a time. Being by myself turned out to be survivable.

That surprised me more than anything Brody had ever done. I ate. I bought things. I packed boxes. The day I moved out of the apartment we'd shared, Brody texted. Him: [No call?

You don't miss me?] He'd taken Sloane traveling. Broadening her horizons, he said. Him: [Bad girl.] Then a photo. Him: [Nice out here.

Want me to bring you for our third anniversary?] I wanted to block him the way I'd blocked her. But I still had to walk into that courthouse with him. So I didn't.

The next two months I worked through it in order. I sold the small jewelry and the bags. I went in for a full physical. I confirmed I wasn't pregnant.

Then I pulled together every asset Brody had handed me to hold over the years. Sorted. Boxed. Labeled. Day eightynine. The night before the courthouse, he came back.

He called me. "Margo, you moved out?" He was used to me going quiet on the phone.

He laughed at it by himself. "Margo, you are too cute." "I told you it was a bit." "Okay, here's what we do." He was in a great mood. "Let's finish the bit.

Come with me tomorrow, we pick up the decree, and then it's done." I held the phone. "Margo, relax, it's only—" "Okay," I said. A whoop went up behind him. A whole room of it.

I hung up. I texted him the time. The next morning I was up early. Brody strolled in late. Sloane had probably done it on purpose.

There was a bite mark on his lower lip, not light, not deep. He acted like it wasn't there. So did I. It went faster than the first time. Five minutes, start to finish. "Margo.

I've got a surprise for you tomorrow." He nudged my shin with his shoe. I put the decree, stamped and sealed, into my bag. "Brody.

Are you free tonight?" Chapter 4 I looked at him. "There's something I want to tell you." He stopped. From the day we got married, I had only ever called him babe.

Then his eyes creased and he flicked the folded decree against his palm. "Sure." Whatever Brody had turned into this year, I didn't want to erase the Brody before it.

I was grateful for all those nights. For a boy who threw a punch for me. Which is why I never planned to leave without saying goodbye. But it rained that night. Thunder.

Lightning across the whole sky. I'm afraid of nights like that. The crash happened inside a storm exactly like that one.

I sat on the edge of my new couch with my hands locked together and waited for him. Part of me was afraid of what twenty years of habit would do when he walked in.

That I'd tear straight through everything I'd built in a month and cry into his shirt like always. He didn't come. He called. The line opened onto noise. "Saved him? Redemption?

That's bullshit!" "Those years were miserable! If my mother hadn't been on me about it I wouldn't have gone near her!" "Married?

You want to know why we got married that young?" "Because she wouldn't let me touch her!" "Okay but I'm genuinely curious. She loses her voice when she gets worked up, right?

So what about in bed? Does she make any sound at all?" The room went off like a firework. Thunder rolled over the roof. Something came apart in me. Again. In the same weather.

I wanted to hide. I did not want one single person on earth looking at me like that. But hide where. There was rain on every window. There was lightning in every room.

There was that laughing, everywhere. That was when Soren called. "Marguerite?" His voice never changes. Everything else went far away. "Are you crying?" I wanted to say no.

Nothing came out. The tears came like the question had opened a gate. "Stay there." Same voice.

Nothing raised. "I'm coming to get you." What that night looked like from his side, I only heard about later. Secondhand. From people who were in the room.

The Calloways' second son was single again.

His friends threw him a newlysingle party in a private booth at a membersonly club and drank until they went down in a row along the seats.

Sometime in the small hours one of them fumbled a phone out of his jacket. "Holy— guys. Guys!" Three of them sat up. "The guy who runs Ashford. He's in Seattle." "Flew in overnight.

Private jet." One of them waved a hand at nothing. "No way. He's overseas, he's sick, nobody's seen the man in ten years." "It's real!

It's trending right now!" The phone went around the booth. The party came back to life. "It's him! And he's got a girl on him!

They're saying he flew in overnight to take her out of the country!" "PR didn't even get ahead of it. What kind of hurry is that." "Let me see. Let me see it." "Wait.

Why does she look familiar." "Brody. Brody!" Someone shoved his shoulder. "Look at the girl Ashford's holding.

Does that look like your wife?" Brody had been lying there with his arm across his eyes for a while. He hadn't moved for any of it.

He didn't move for this either. "There's no chance that's her." He took the phone anyway. "She won't drive across town. She's not leaving the country—" One look, and he stopped.

Rain coming down over the airport. A black umbrella. A tall man under it, face like a shut door. The girl in his arm was folded in so far that nothing of her showed.

You couldn't see her face. Brody's hand closed around the phone, a little at a time. Chapter 5 He pinched the picture wider. That line of shoulder.

That color of hair. "No," he said, to the booth, to nobody. "No." The phone hit the table. "She doesn't know Soren Ashford.

She's never met the man." "She asked me over to her place tonight. Herself. First time in a month." Brody took a cigarette out of his case and lit it. He got out his own phone.

Scrolled to her name. His thumb was already moving. Then he caught the time at the top of the screen. Three in the morning. He set it face down. Except.

It had never mattered what time it was. She always picked up. He woke the screen again. That number had been in his phone for almost twenty years. Call. "We're sorry.

The number you have dialed is no longer in service." After the crash I never left Seattle