Prologue
Divorce
Ella
Laughter was all around me. Tonight we were in a private room of one of the top restaurants in town. Surrounding me was a group of close family and friends. We're here tonight to celebrate my husband’s birthday.
The chiming sound of silverware tapping on glass makes the room go silent. Turning my attention from the many smiling faces, I place my sights on the man of the hour.
Standing at the head of the table is my husband, Andrew. Even after twenty-two years of being in love with him, he still looks asgood as the first day I saw him. Smooth caramel skin spread out over six feet of a sexy toned body. When we were younger, his beautiful chocolate brown curls had the girls going crazy. Now, his bald head and goatee have women’s heads turning. The man is gorgeous, I’ll give him that.
Andrew clears his throat. “I want to thank everyone for coming out and celebrating my birthday with me.”
“Any time, Drew!” Jack, one of Andrew’s law school buddies, shouts out.
My husband chuckles. “I told Ella I didn’t want a party, but of course she didn’t listen.” He makes the joke casually, causing his friends and family to laugh.
However, I don’t join in on the laughter. I spent weeks preparing for this party. Picking the restaurant, making sure everyone got their invites, managing everyone’s questions and schedules so they could be here. Weeks that he knew about in advance.
It wasn’t until this morning that he decided he no longer wanted the damn party. By then it was too late to cancel. Of course, it was still my fault.
Andrew takes a sip of the champagne in his glass before placing the flute back down on the table. He straightens and tugs at his suit jacket while looking directly at me.
“I’d planned to tell her this in private. But, I guess now is as good a time as any.....I want a divorce.”
Although the room was so silent you could hear a rat piss on cotton, the sound in my ears was loud like static or waves crashing against the shore. Clearly, I’d misheard him.
“What did he say?” My mother asks.
Apparently, she needed clarification too.
Everyone’s gaze turned to me. I’ve always hated being the center of attention. I think it stems from my mom forcing meto recite those Christmas and Easter speeches in front of the church when I was a kid.
However, I’d rather be back in front of that church getting tongue-tied over the Lord’s Prayer than be here.
“I said, I want a divorce,” he repeated the words so casually, as if he isn’t single-handedly turning my world upside down.
I sit paralyzed in my seat, trying to make sense of his words. Admittedly, we haven’t been those two fifteen-year-old kids that fell madly in love in a long time. We go longer days without mending arguments or showing affection. The ‘I love you’s’ have shortened to maybe once a week, if that. Sex has become so predictable I can usually time it down to the second.
I can’t say that this came out of nowhere, because I felt him pulling away long before today. But not once has he ever addressed the issue with me, or suggested counseling. I assumed we were in a rough spot and would work our way through it. Never would I have thought this would be the outcome.
“I don’t understand.” I’m struggling to wrap my mind around this entire situation. We have kids together, a mortgage, and fifteen years of marriage. How can he stand here and tell me he wanted to leave?
“I don’t know how to make it any clearer.”
“The clarity isn’t the problem,” Mama says in answer to Andrew’s comment. “We’re trying to figure out the audacity.” Her leg is jumping underneath the table, bumping up against mine.
Usually, in situations like this, I have to find the right words to say to calm her down. I’m an only child and no one is allowed to mess with Faye Alexander’s baby. No matter how old I am.
However, right now, I don’t have it in me. I can’t be the reasonable one that keeps my mother from whooping ass—as she likes to call it—because I’m still confused.
His parents, who often coddled him too much for my liking, sit across from me. They look as if they knew this announcement was coming. I don’t doubt it. His mother never knew how to take the tit out of his mouth.
“It’s understandable, son,” Mrs. Scott says, admiring her son as if he’s her lover.
“Understandable?” my stepfather repeated, leaning forward in his seat. “What is understandable about telling your wife of fifteen years that you want a divorce in a room full of people?”
Mrs. Scott opens her mouth to say something else, but her husband places his hand over hers on the table, causing her to close her mouth.
