With the divorce finally settled, I hoped it would come back. This house-Cody’s and my house-was going to be filled with light and laughter. The first things that were coming down were all the light-blocking curtains Neil preferred. I saw an empty canvas waiting for me to make my own mark. The walls too bore empty spaces where Neil’s artwork once hung. Only pictures of our connecting link smiled back at me. There were blank spaces on the mantle where once stood pictures of a happy family. I turned around and took a hard look at the house we had built together it already looked different. My eyes were begging for relief from the tears that stung them, but I refused to let them fall. I slammed the door behind him and took a deep breath. I mustered up some energy for that laugh when I opened the door and said not another word. His head dropped and he muttered under his breath, “I’ll always love you.” Don’t give me another excuse that will never explain or make up for the inexcusable.” I’d heard them all already. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of knowing he could still hurt me. “You should have asked yourself that when you decided to forget you were a married man.” Some emotion crept in, but I held steady. “That’s it, after nineteen years together?” His audacity was astounding. “Goodbye, Neil.” I reached around him to open the door. I wanted to laugh in his face-I was done with tears-but I was too tired. “I think you mean you never meant to get caught.”

“I didn’t mean for us to turn out this way.” He shuffled the box in his hands, using both now to hold it. I used more force this time and took the key and my hand back, along with my life. I used to see my future reflected in those brown pools now all I saw was a fork in the road. Lines crinkled where there was once smooth skin. My gray eyes bore into his tired brown eyes that now wore the mark of his age. I knew that hand better than my own-soft but firm, a comfort once. He barely met my eyes when he pressed the key into my hand and lingered. Well, maybe one thing, but I was claiming Cody mostly mine.

He shifted the box to one hand while he reached into his pocket for our. He held an open box filled with odds and ends-his alarm clock, the paper weights that used to sit on his desk.

The Sidelined Wife by Jennifer Peel