The house was dark when I stepped inside, the way it always was when nobody expected me—no porch light, no kitchen glow, no friendly noise to meet you at the door. My suitcase wheels clicked softly over the tile, and the sound felt too loud in a home that used to feel alive. Then the living room lamp snapped on, bright and deliberate, as if someone had been waiting with their finger on a switch.
In the center of the room, on our heavy wooden coffee table, three neat piles sat like exhibits in a courtroom.
Divorce papers. Documents about separating assets. And a tablet propped up against a coaster, playing grainy footage of two men carrying boxes down my hallway at midnight—my boxes, my labeled storage bins, my winter coats, my framed photos, my life being handled like surplus.
Grant was sitting on the couch with his ankles crossed, one arm resting along the back like he was hosting a meeting.
On either side of him, our two children stood shoulder to shoulder. Lucas on the left, tall and stiff, his jaw clenched so tight I could see the muscles working. Meline on the right, her hands wrapped around her phone as if it were a shield.
Both of them had their cameras aimed at me.
“Sit down, Hazel,” Grant said, calm as a banker. “We’re doing this the easy way.”
I set my suitcase by the entryway and walked toward them without hurrying. My heels didn’t click like they usually did when I was annoyed.
I didn’t even feel annoyed, not in the way you’d expect. I felt something stranger: the quiet confirmation of a puzzle piece sliding into place.
I sat.
Grant slid the papers closer, his wedding ring catching the light as if it still meant something. “Sign,” he said, tapping a line with a pen.
“We’ve already recorded the inventory. We’ve already got the footage.”
Lucas shifted his weight. Meline’s mouth pulled into a tight smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
Their phones stayed raised, ready to capture what they thought would be my collapse.
I picked up the pen, scanned the first page like I was reviewing a contractor bid, and signed exactly where the line told me to.
No shaking hands. No pleading questions. No voice breaking.
I signed the next one.
Then the next.
Grant’s eyebrows lifted just slightly, the way they used to when he didn’t understand a decision I made on a job site. Lucas blinked fast, like he was waiting for the part where I begged him to stop. Meline’s forced smile faltered.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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