My husband put down the divorce papers with a smile and said, “Accept my mistress, or we’ll break up.”
I signed the papers without hesitation.
My husband turned pale. “No, wait. You misunderstood.”
My name is Linda, and if you had asked me a week ago to describe my life, I would have used words like stable, comfortable, and—maybe, if I were being honest—predictable. I’m forty-eight years old. I live in a colonial-style house in the suburbs of Chicago with a wraparound porch that I spent three summers repainting myself. I have two sons, a meticulously organized pantry, and a husband named Mark whom I have been married to for fifteen years.
Or rather, I had a husband.
It was a Tuesday evening. Tuesdays used to be taco nights, a tradition we started when Jason was a toddler, but lately, Tuesdays were just nights Mark worked late—or said he worked late. I was standing at the kitchen island, scrubbing a stubborn coffee ring off the granite countertop. The house was quiet. The boys were upstairs, Jason doing homework and Tyler playing video games. The only sound was the hum of the refrigerator and the rhythmic swish of my sponge.
Then the front door opened. Usually, Mark comes home with the weight of the world on his shoulders, loosening his tie, complaining about traffic on I-90, asking if dinner is ready. But this time, the energy was different. He walked in with a strut, a bounce in his step. He was wearing his navy pinstripe suit, the one he saves for board meetings, and he smelled like an expensive distillery mixed with a perfume that was floral, cloying, and definitely not mine.
“Linda,” he said. Not honey, not babe, just Linda.
He didn’t come over to kiss me. He walked straight to the kitchen table, pulled out a chair, and sat down. He placed a thick manila envelope on the table with a heavy, deliberate thud. It sounded like a judge’s gavel.
“Sit down,” he said. It wasn’t a request; it was a command.
I wiped my hands on a dish towel, my heart starting a slow, heavy thumping in my chest. “Dinner is in the oven, Mark. It’s pot roast, your favorite.”
“Forget the pot roast.” He waved a hand dismissively. “We need to discuss the future.”
I sat opposite him. The envelope lay between us like a loaded weapon. Mark leaned back, interlacing his fingers behind his head, a smug smile playing on his lips. He looked like a cat that had not only eaten the canary but had also negotiated a book deal about it.
“Here is the situation,” he began, his voice smooth and practiced, as if he were pitching a client. “I have met someone. Her name is Tiffany. She is twenty-eight. She works in marketing, and she makes me feel things I haven’t felt in a decade. Passion. Excitement. Vitality.”
I felt the blood drain from my face, leaving my hands cold and numb. I stared at him, waiting for the punchline, waiting for him to say he was joking. But his eyes were dead serious.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he continued, not letting me speak. “You’re thinking this is the end, but it doesn’t have to be. I’m a pragmatic man, Linda. I know you rely on me. You haven’t worked in fifteen years. You like this house. You like your garden. You like the fact that the boys go to private school.”
He leaned forward, his elbows resting on the table, invading my space. “So, I have drawn up a proposal. An ultimatum, if you will. Inside that envelope are divorce papers, but they are just a formality, a threat to show you I’m serious. Here is the deal: I am going to be with Tiffany. I will spend my weekends at her apartment. I will be here during the week for the boys. We stay married legally. You keep the house, the credit cards, the status of being Mrs. Mark Reynolds. In exchange, you look the other way. You accept that I have a life outside of this domestic boredom.”
He paused, letting the words sink in. “Accept my mistress, Linda, or we break up right now. And if we break up, you know you can’t survive out there alone. You’re nearly fifty. The job market isn’t exactly begging for former accountants who haven’t touched a spreadsheet since the Bush administration.”
He smirked. That smirk. It was the expression of a man who held all the cards. He honestly believed I was trapped. He thought I was weak. He thought I was just a fixture in his house, like the lamp in the corner or the rug in the hallway—useful, decorative, but ultimately silent.
I looked at the envelope. Then I looked at him.
“So,” I said, my voice surprisingly steady, “my options are to share my husband with a woman half my age or to be divorced?”
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