When My Wife Finally Said Yes

The fifth time I asked for a divorce, my wife finally said yes.

The first four times she was shocked, then furious, then in pain, and at the end of it she begged, until I couldn't stand any more of it.

This time she was at the sink washing dishes. Her hands paused for a second, and she gave a small nod. "Okay." She said it so lightly, as if a divorce were a minor errand.

I looked at her thin back, and even though I was elated, something strange rose in me that I couldn't name.

Chapter 1 Solange called while I was still sitting on the couch, turning that strange feeling over. "How did it go this time?

Did she agree?" Her voice was soft, with nerves threaded through it. I came back to myself, shook my head clear, and let the pleasure into my voice. "Yeah.

She agreed." A few seconds of silence on the other end. Then her voice came back, shaking. "Really? Ty, don't lie to me." Something in me ached.

I softened my voice. "Solange, it's true. She really agreed this time.

We can be together out in the open now." A low sob came through the phone. "Thank God… I finally get to have you." I could feel her excitement surging, and my own eyes went hot too.

It was the fifth time I had asked Marguerite for a divorce. The first four, without exception, she had refused.

Over two years, Marguerite had gone from shocked to furious to anguished to pleading, and I had gone from guilty and uneasy to numb and sick of the whole thing… Every time the negotiation failed, I felt like I couldn't face Solange.

She wanted it so much, she had pinned so much hope on it, and she swallowed so much.

The hurt on her face was impossible to hide, and still she was the one who ended up comforting me. "We're both women. I understand her, and you two have a child.

If it comes to it, we'll work a little harder, take on a few more projects, give her a bigger cut. God.

If this weren't real love, why would we ever have gone this far…" Today was the first time I'd been home in two months. I called ahead.

When I walked in, Marguerite already had a full table of food out, and she was sitting under the lamp by the couch with her head bent over a book.

She saw me, folded down the corner of her page, set the book aside, and told me calmly to wash up and eat. Penny, she said, was at a classmate's birthday party in the same building.

Before I came, Solange and I had agreed: if she still refused to sign, I'd add twenty percent to the payout in the settlement I'd given her last time.

I was prepared to negotiate all night. Instead— I got one sentence out, and Marguerite agreed, just like that, as if it cost her nothing.

On the phone, Solange didn't sound sure either. It was a while before she said, slowly, "Ty, she isn't pulling something, is she?" It wasn't a strange question, coming from her.

As my VP of business development, she always thought one layer deeper the second a deal got difficult. I shook my head. "I doubt it. Marguerite's a stayathome mom.

She doesn't know the first thing about how people cut each other's throats in business." Solange's voice went softer. "You never know what's inside a person.

Just because she doesn't understand it doesn't mean she can't find someone who does.

For the company, for our future, I'd rather you were careful." I was quiet for a moment. "Don't worry." Marguerite came out of the bedroom with a document in her hand.

I looked up and watched her. Nothing moving in her eyes. Nothing moving in her face. None of the old collapse, none of the grief, none of the hysterics.

Chapter 2 "I already signed it. Tell me when you've got the court date." She handed me the document and turned away to make tea.

The electric kettle rumbled and burbled as a thin ribbon of water curved down, and the smell of firstflush Darjeeling spread through the apartment.

She picked up the cup, and out of habit I put my hand out for it. She raised it to her own lips instead and took an unhurried sip.

Then she saw my hand still hanging there, and gave me a strange look. "Isn't the settlement already in your hand?" I frowned a little, took my hand back, and looked down to read through the marital settlement agreement.

Ten minutes later I looked up, puzzled. "Isn't this the one I gave you last time?

You didn't change a word?" Marguerite had folded her legs up onto the couch and was drinking her tea, back in the book she hadn't finished.

She lifted her head out of it, blank for a second before she caught what I meant. "Oh. No.

It looked fine to me." I watched her for a while, thought about it, and said it anyway. "Marguerite, if this is still something you can't get past, I can raise the number." She tipped her head, and a faint smile came up. "Raise it?

Did Solange agree to that?" Something in me went sour and tired at the same time. Two years of this. Any mention of the divorce and Marguerite could steer it around to Solange.

In her eyes I was probably nothing but a husband who couldn't resist temptation, and Solange was the other woman, shameless enough to walk into someone else's family.

She had no idea. No idea what it had taken us, what we'd gone through, what we'd fought against, before we finally took that step.

The truth is that Solange and I couldn't stand each other at first. My cofounder had paid a lot to bring her in as VP of business development.

Heels all day, red lipstick, pencil skirts. Fast and hard at work, aggressive across a negotiating table, willing to contradict me in front of the whole room in an internal meeting.

Marguerite was mild and quiet. Barefaced, simple clothes. Outside of taking care of me and our daughter, she drank tea, read, and looked after her plants.

I had never in my life had a woman like Solange anywhere near me. I was complaining about Solange again, and Marguerite was carefully trimming an orchid.

She looked up at me through the green leaves, head tilted, laughing at me. "You've been mentioning her kind of a lot lately." What changed my mind about Solange was the day I found her in the stairwell, sitting on a step with her face in her hands, crying.

She looked up at me with her eyes swollen red, wiped her face fast, stood, said sorry in a hoarse voice, and went down the stairs with her chin up, heels hammering.

Later I got it out of my cofounder. She'd divorced out of an abusive marriage, she was raising a sevenyearold daughter alone, and the ex still came around to harass her.

Knowing there was something that fragile under the hard face she wore at work, I started treating her differently. She did the same for me.

We worked well together, and then better than well. Across a table, she understood what I meant under what I said, and I knew when she was bluffing.

At client dinners she'd take round after round of toasts for me when I'd had too much, or slide a hot coffee in front of me without a word.

Then one time I walked in on her ex wearing her down again, about to put his hands on her. I went straight at him and threw a punch, and she cried out.

I remember going home that night with a bandage around my head, and how badly it scared Marguerite. She held me, shaking, saying it over and over. "Does your head hurt?

Your head—you can't get hurt there! Are you sure you're all right?" Chapter 3 Solange and I had known each other three years before we slept together the first time.

It was at the company retreat on Nantucket. Marguerite had always wanted to see that old island town south of Boston.

One birthday she made a wish out loud, that I'd take her and Penny there and give them a real trip.

So when admin asked me where to hold the retreat, it came out of me before I thought about it. "Nantucket." I meant it as a surprise for Marguerite.

But in that stretch of time there was something between Solange and me that neither of us could have named. Some devil got into me, and I didn't tell Marguerite.

The nights on that island were too beautiful, the drinks went down too easy, the sights dazzled you.

Solange knocked on my door in a nightgown, and we spent one insane, forbidden night. We both knew we had done something badly wrong.

After we got home I turned it over and over and then cut off all direct working contact with her. She accepted the arrangement without a word of complaint.

Only the way she looked at me went quiet and sad. Marguerite happened to see the Nantucket photos on my phone and asked me, delighted, "When were you in Nantucket?

Why didn't you take me?" Guilty as hell, I mumbled through it. "A meeting. One day. I didn't mention it." Then Solange gave notice. I approved it.

We both knew it was the best result available. After she left, we didn't contact each other once. Until three months later, when we ended up on opposite sides of a deal.

She'd gone to the other company.

At the signing dinner, their CEO got drunk and turned "finish this bottle and I'll sign" into a game for himself and a few of his people to play on me.

They had my head held back and were pouring it down my throat again, and Solange, who hadn't said a word all night, picked up a bottle and brought it down on the CEO's head.

She lost her job. The settlement took every dollar she had. She pleaded to misdemeanor battery and served fifteen days in county.

The day she got out, I was the one who picked her up. We went straight to a hotel. Days and nights of it. I'd worked it out in my head. You only get one life.

To hell with family obligation, to hell with where the line is. Call me a man who takes a woman and throws her away, call me the kind of cheating bastard the whole world spits at.

I wanted to go under. I wanted to go crazy. I couldn't do wrong by a woman who had given up that much for me. … I pulled myself back.

Today, with seven years of marriage down to its last step, I didn't want to hear Solange's name come out of Marguerite's mouth again. "I'll tell you the time once it's set.

Be there." I said it coldly, and I left that home. At the elevator I ran into my daughter.

Penny came out carrying a cut slice of cake in both hands, all lit up, and the second she saw me the light went out of her face. "Penny, Daddy—" I didn't get to finish.

She walked past me with no expression at all. I frowned. Penny used to throw her arms around my neck and say Daddy in that sweet voice the instant she saw me.

Two months, and she looked at me like a stranger. I'd told Marguerite a long time back not to say anything to Penny about the divorce. Clearly she hadn't done as I asked.

Down on the sidewalk I looked up at our window. Penny had a forkful of cake up, happily feeding it to Marguerite, and Marguerite's eyes curved as she bent to take it.

My phone buzzed and I looked away. Solange had sent me a message. [Come home, husband.

Your wife has a big reward waiting for you tonight.] It was the first time she had ever called me husband. I could picture her right then, how worked up she was, how thrilled.

I let out a long breath and walked off fast. Here is what the marital settlement agreement said: Chapter 4 Custody of Penny and the apartment we lived in went to Marguerite.

Given that the company was about to go public, my equity stayed where it was, but she would receive $3.2 million as compensation, payable in one year.

When Solange saw the number, it hurt her for my sake. "You built this out of nothing, piece by piece, all these years, and you hand it over just like that.

How many projects are you going to have to grind through to earn it back?" I told her it was all right. "I'm the one who wronged her. We should count ourselves lucky.

If she really wanted the court to divide the marital property, it would come to a lot more than that." Solange put her head on my shoulder. "I just hate what it's doing to your health." She was efficient.

Within days she had the courthouse appointment set for filing our joint petition.

I sent the time to Marguerite, and she came back with a single word. [Okay.] In the days we spent waiting, you could see the happiness on Solange. And why not.

Two years, from the first time I asked for a divorce to now, the two of us keeping each other going, carrying a lot, getting through a lot.

She still couldn't quite believe it. "How did she just suddenly agree? "She's really not playing some angle? "This came so fast it doesn't feel real." And it wasn't only her.

There was a question sitting in me too.

One night, both of us spent, Solange fell into a hard sleep against my chest while I smoked and looked at the moon out the window, my head running in every direction, and a small thing came back to me.

A little over a month ago, I was in a meeting when Marguerite called, with anger under her voice. "Why did you give Penny's competition slot to Solange's daughter?" It annoyed me, and I came down on her. "Penny competes every year.

Bettina has never had a chance like this in her life. What's the harm in giving it up once? And I'm the one funding that academy.

Penny will have all the chances she wants." Marguerite was quiet for a long time, and then, low, "Do you know how hard Penny worked for this one?

She said she wanted to prove on her own merits that her dad hadn't played favorites, that she'd bring home a first place and make you proud…" I was sick of her using morality to lean on me, and I said, rough, "I'll buy her something later to make up for it.

Bettina's a kid who's had it hard—" She hung up before I finished. The day of the competition, I drove Solange and Bettina over. Traffic stopped us halfway, and I saw Marguerite.

She was on an ebike with Penny in the child seat behind her. Marguerite didn't drive.

It wasn't far from home to the academy, but the traffic there was brutal, so she often took that ebike to get Penny to her lessons.

The wind was strong that day, and the two of them had been blown into a mess, hair everywhere, looking beaten up by it.

I glanced over at Bettina in her pretty, delicate princess dress, drinking milk, tucked into Solange's arms.

A car forced its way into the lane and clipped the ebike, and Marguerite and Penny went down on the pavement.

My hand was on the door before I thought about it, and Solange pressed it down and slowly shook her head. "She already doesn't like me or Bettina.

You going over there now will only make her angrier. It's all right. They're not hurt, they're already getting up." I looked.

The two of them were holding onto each other, getting to their feet.

Then Bettina put the passenger window down and called, "Penny!" and said, loud and delighted with herself, "We're going to the competition in Daddy Ty's car.

Are you going to the competition too?" In the middle of my panic, my eyes met Marguerite's. I thought she would make a scene.

She only gave me one flat look, turned to comfort Penny, and rode off with her. … Chapter 5 From the moment I decided to take the name everyone would call me and go down this road, I had deliberately kept myself from thinking about anything that could soften my resolve.

I couldn't do right by this one and that one both. Give her a little extra, I told myself.

A stayathome mom who never worked a day in her life, walking away with that kind of money for nothing. That's hardly mistreating her. Compared to plenty of people, she's lucky.

I ground out the cigarette. And shut down the memories that had come up out of nowhere. The day we filed, Solange insisted on coming with me.

She said she wanted to tell Marguerite she was sorry, and mean it. I wasn't sure. "What if she does something to you in there…" She smiled, bitter. "Then good.

Call it paid back." We got to the Probate and Family Court ten minutes early, and Solange held my hand, the two of us bracing each other.

When Marguerite came in, I didn't recognize her. The barefaced, plain way she always dressed was gone.

She had on a navy trench coat belted at the waist, she was in heels, and her long hair came down like satin to her waist.

Light makeup, and her skin had always been fairer and smoother than anyone else's, so her eyes and her teeth and the whole line of her face came out of it like a painting.

She walked in with her hands in her pockets, entirely at ease. She seemed to carry some strange field with her. Wherever she was, the air there turned calm and quiet.

At home it was like that. Out in the world it was like that too. The hall went quiet, and every eye in it moved to her. I lost my footing for a second.

A distant, blurred familiarity came at me out of nowhere.

I got up and walked over, and the first thing out of my mouth was, "You wear heels?" She stopped, clearly not expecting that of all things. "I do." "I've never seen you in them." Her brows came together slightly, but she answered anyway. "I have something to do today." I was about to ask what, and Solange came over.

Something startled went through her eyes when she saw Marguerite too, and then she smiled easily and said hello. "Hello, Marguerite.

You don't mind that I came today?" Marguerite looked at her for a few seconds, and the corner of her mouth lifted slightly. "Not anymore." Something about that put me on edge, and I said, rough, "This is a public place.

Don't start crying and carrying on like you used to." I wasn't being unfair to her. Over two brutal years of this divorce she had cried and carried on.

More often she'd looked at me with red eyes and said things that made no sense. "Tyrone, you love me.

You just don't remember. "Tyrone, what am I supposed to do with you? "Tyrone, I can't hold on anymore.

Don't blame me, all right…" There were times when the two of us loved each other. And I did change. By the end I had less and less patience. "Marguerite, what's past is past.

You need to accept reality. People change." Now Marguerite lowered her eyes and smiled. "Let's go file." The paperwork went smoothly.

The clerk told us the judgment wouldn't become final until a ninetyday waiting period had run.

On the way out the courthouse doors, Solange gathered her nerve and said to Marguerite, earnestly, "The truth is, I came today because I wanted to tell you I'm sorry.

Ty and I, well. It's fate.

Nobody gets a say in it…" Marguerite smiled, and glanced at the bag on Solange's arm. "Are you sure you didn't come so I could see the bag?" The two women looked at each other in silence among the lateautumn leaves.

Solange smiled at her. Chapter 6 I had no idea what they were talking about. I took a closer look at the bag. There was a silk scarf tied around the handle.

It looked familiar… Then it came back to me. The bag was a present I'd given Solange six months earlier. Expensive. The price of a house for an ordinary family.

She had her arms around me, kissing me, delighted, when Marguerite called and said, soft and slow, that it was her birthday and she was holding dinner for me. I was embarrassed.

Solange was generous about it and told me to go. "A friendly divorce is good for the IPO.

Don't be difficult." She smiled and untied a silk scarf from the bag. "The scarves from this brand aren't cheap either.

Take it for her birthday present, so you don't have to run around buying something.

I'll pick up another one at the boutique later." I remember how happy Marguerite was with that scarf, those doe eyes blinking as she tried it one way, then another.

And now her gaze went lightly over the replacement scarf on the bag. And lightly away again. I didn't know what was happening to me.

Since Marguerite agreed to the divorce, things I'd never paid attention to, things I'd forgotten, kept coming up without warning. People get sentimental, I thought.

Maybe this was just my brain cutting the line to the past. I took Solange out to my parents' house.

She made herself as small as she could and brought a pile of expensive gifts, and my parents were ice to her. They had been strongly against the divorce from the beginning.

At the worst of the fighting, my father pointed at me and roared, "You brainless idiot! You won't hold onto what you traded your life for!

Do you have any idea what she gave up for you?

There will come a day when you're sorry!" "That's enough!" My mother screamed him down, and said, crying, "Do you want him going back to how he was…" Solange felt it.

Her eyes went red in the car when we left. I tried to settle her. "You're marrying me, not my family.

Don't take it to heart." She got herself back together quickly, and then something occurred to her. "Your mom said she didn't want you going back to how you were.

What did that mean?" I laughed and told her. "You probably can't imagine it, but I used to be a guy with nothing to lose. Drinking, fighting, all of it.

Somebody split my head open in a fight once and I was unconscious in the hospital for a while, and after that, any time I got worked up, I'd get headaches.

They're probably afraid of setting off the old problem…" That night, to get Solange smiling again, I took her to a bar that had just opened. It was an elegant place with live music.

The music carried, and every person in the room had their eyes fixed on the woman at the center of the stage, graceful, in a long velvet dress.

She set the violin on her shoulder and turned her head slightly, her long hair falling loose over her eyes. The bow came down, and the notes ran out like water from a spring.

I stared. That distant, blurred feeling came up in me again. I couldn't say what it was, only that it was like fine needles going into my chest, close together.

Solange laughed softly and leaned in to my ear. "The first time you really felt something for me was the retreat on Nantucket, wasn't it?" I came back to myself and smiled. "You caught me." She put her head on my shoulder, sweet, a little wistful. "At that retreat, in the talent show, I was in a long dress playing violin too.

I was faking it, but the way you looked at me then is exactly the way you're looking now." The piece ended, and the woman on stage rose, slender and straight, smiled out at the room, and went off.

I sat there, stalled. Beside me, Solange said, puzzled, "She looks a little like Marguerite…" I shook my head, and laughed at myself. Chapter 7 "She does, a little.

But Marguerite can't play anything like that." My phone rang. It was my brother, Jeremiah, calling from France. I went out the side door into the walkway to take it.

On the phone, unusually serious, Jeremiah asked me, "Did you really divorce Marguerite?" It was out of me before I could stop it, irritated. "Since when do you call her that?

She's your brother's wife." The words were out, and I froze.

It was a while before I said, "It's going through." Jeremiah was quiet a moment. "I'm coming back next month." "You just closed a round of foreign investment.

What are you suddenly coming back for?" "Marguerite." I had nothing to say to that. I could not understand it. My own family, every one of them, lining up to protect Marguerite.

Restless, I went to the window and lit a cigarette.

Out in the cold of the night, someone was talking. "All those years without touching it, and you come back sounding exactly like the gold medalist you were at the national youth competition." A woman's voice, gentle. "Mr.

Kilbride, thank you for giving me the chance to play tonight." "With a response like that from the room, I should be thanking you." I followed the voices with my eyes.

Two figures were walking slowly off, and one of them was the woman in the long dress who had just played. The night wind came across and lifted her hair.

A profile I knew came into view. I pushed the side door open and went out, almost without deciding to