After the Divorce, I Belong to Him

My marriage to Walter Henson fell roughly into three stages.

In the first, we had just signed the papers, and life was sweet.

No matter how late he worked, Walter always came home.

And I always left a light on for him.

In the second stage, he began to find me ignorant, useless at everything.

He wouldn't bring me to his company, wouldn't introduce me to his friends.

I signed up for every kind of class I could, wanting to learn more, to catch up to him.

And he looked at me with nothing but distaste and said, "Greta Fox, the girls at the massage parlor know more than you do."

The third stage was the one that hurt the most.

We fought without end, blamed each other, tore into each other.

In the end Walter said, coldly, "Let's get divorced."

I cried until I was hysterical, screaming at him, "Walter Henson, have you no shame? I've been with you since I was eighteen!"

"If you had any shame, would you have thrown yourself at me at eighteen?"

Looking at the mockery and disgust on his face, the last thread of reluctance in me broke.

I went abruptly calm, and answered, "Fine."

But when I really let go and walked away, Walter, why did you start to regret it?

When we came out of the county clerk's office with our divorce papers in hand, the rain started all at once.

He jogged to his car, pulled the door open, got in, hit the gas.

The engine roared, and he was gone in moments.

Leaving me standing there alone, to face the wind and rain by myself.

I felt dazed.

I thought of the day Walter and I had signed our marriage license.

Unlike today, the weather then had been beautiful.

The sun hung high in the sky, so bright it was hard to keep your eyes open.

Walter rode a scooter with me on the back, and the heat had us both dripping with sweat.

While we waited at a red light, an SUV pulled up beside us.

A family of three sat inside.

They were chatting, no sweat on their faces, only smiles.

And Walter, back then, had gone red around the eyes. He said to me, "Greta, I swear I'll work hard and make money, so you can ride in a car even better than that one, and never bake in the sun or take the wind again!"

But now, it seemed I was the only one who still remembered that vow.

From wrapped up in each other to complete strangers, it had taken Walter and me a mere five years.

I waited half an hour inside the office, but the rain didn't ease. If anything, it came down harder.

Looking at the three-digit queue number on my ride app, I couldn't help but sigh.

It seemed I wouldn't make it in time to pick up the luggage I'd already packed.

When we'd worked out the divorce terms, Walter still had some conscience about him.

He wanted to give me the house, and half the savings on top of that.

I didn't take any of it.

His fine features hardened, and his voice went cold at once.

"Greta, is there any point in playing at being someone who doesn't care about money? You never held back when you were buying luxury goods."

My heart had long gone numb from all the endless fighting, but hearing that, I couldn't stop the fine, needling ache that rose in me.

The luxury goods had started in the second year of our marriage.

By then his business had begun to take off, and there were endless dinners and social obligations. I often waited at home for him deep into the night.

Once, he came home drunk, threw up the moment he was through the door, and after he was done he held on to me and cried.

I held him, patting his back, asking what was wrong.

At first Walter didn't want to tell me.

I coaxed him all night, and just before dawn he suddenly said, "Greta, I'm going to make so much money, so no one will ever look down on me again, ever call me cheap and shabby!"

I knew someone at that dinner table had made him feel small.

It broke my heart.

The next day, I threw myself into researching men's suits, watches, cufflinks, ties.

Every cent he'd left me, I turned into things that would make him look the part.

Later, as his business grew and grew, the people he moved among belonged to a different class.

He started to say I didn't know how to dress, that I was small-minded, cheap.

That was when I gritted my teeth and bought myself a bag that cost thousands.

By the time we divorced, that bag was the only luxury item in the house that was mine.

I lowered my eyes and told Walter Henson, "Everything in this house you earned out there, working hard. I don't want any of it."

Walter gave a cold laugh. "Don't come regretting it."

He had his lawyer draw up a new divorce agreement, and he signed his name across it in a bold, sweeping scrawl.

On his way out, he said, "Greta. Clear all your things out of the house."

I'd spent the whole night sorting through it, planning to call the movers the next day.

Instead, the moment the workday began, Walter took me straight to the county clerk's office.

Count it up, and today was exactly the thirtieth day since we'd filed for divorce.

Walter didn't want to wait a single minute longer.

I thought it over, then stepped out into the rain, ran to the curb, and scanned a rental bike.

I wanted to get back early, so I wouldn't run into Walter and make things awkward.

I hadn't gone ten meters when a car pulled up beside me.

"Where are you headed? Want a lift?"

I looked blankly at the man behind the wheel.

I didn't know him.

He must have seen the confusion on my face, because he explained quickly, "I was just at the clerk's office too. I saw you standing at the door for a long time, then riding off in the rain, so I figured you had somewhere urgent to be. I've got nothing on right now. If you don't mind, I can drop you off."

Maybe the rain was coming down too hard to let me think.

By the time I came back to myself, I was already sitting in the passenger seat.

I felt embarrassed at once. "Sorry, I've gotten your seat wet."

"It's fine, it's all leather anyway, easy to wipe down. So, where to?"

I told him the place.

After that, neither of us said anything, and there was only the sound of the rain outside the car.

The silence was a little awkward.

Without thinking, I reached for something to say. "Why were you at the clerk's office? Getting divorced too?"

The words were barely out before I wanted to slap myself.

What kind of question was that!

The man seemed to catch my mortification, and he smiled.

He said, "I'm still unmarried, so I can't very well get divorced. I came with my parents today."

"Oh?" I was a little surprised.

He didn't say more, only changed the subject. "Harrison Shaw."

It took me a second to realize he was giving me his name. I said quickly, "I'm Greta Fox."

After that, he didn't speak again.

Harrison drove me all the way to the entrance of my complex, and considerately handed me an umbrella.

I thanked him at once. "Mr. Shaw, thank you for today. Let me buy you a meal sometime!"

Then I left him my number and hurried off.

I didn't see the satisfied smile at the corner of his mouth.

I was moving fast, almost jogging the whole way to the foot of my building.

Then I took one look, and the blood ran cold through my whole body.

The luggage I'd packed had all been thrown out.

Lying quietly beside the trash can.

Soaked through by the rain, a sodden heap.

Anger surged up in me all at once.

I wanted to go find Walter and demand an answer, ask him why he had to force me into such humiliation!

I'd taken one step forward when I saw something familiar in the trash.

It was a picture frame.

The one that held our wedding photo, the frame that had hung over the head of our bed for five years.

The anger in me cooled all at once.

All that was left was a single thought: Walter and I were really over.

Once that settled in my mind, I didn't linger. I turned and walked away.

Those bags were things I'd bought with Walter's money anyway. If they were thrown out, then they were thrown out.

Call it starting over.

I thought about it and decided to check into a hotel for the night before looking for a place. But the moment I reached the entrance of the complex, I saw Harrison Shaw's car still parked where it had been.

Before I could even be surprised, he rolled down the window. "Miss Fox, I haven't left yet. Want me to give you a lift again?"

I wasn't a naive girl anymore. In an instant I understood that Harrison's intentions weren't so simple.

But he'd helped me so much that I couldn't very well refuse.

So I got in and said, a little distantly, "Thank you."

When he heard I wanted a hotel, Harrison didn't ask anything more. Like a perfect gentleman, he dropped me at the door and left.

I kept my guard up. After he was gone, I took a cab to a bed-and-breakfast six miles away and settled in there instead.

Once I was settled, I started planning out the days ahead.

I didn't have much money on hand. I couldn't just sit and burn through it. I needed to work.

But when it came to sending out my rsum, I ran into trouble.

My education wasn't bad, but I'd married Walter right out of school and spent five years as a housewife, with no work history at all.

Sure enough, every rsum I sent out sank without a trace.

I searched like that for a month, and just as I was about to give up, I suddenly got a message from an HR rep.

She told me that although I didn't meet the requirements for the position I'd applied to, the company's staff cafeteria was short a cook, and she'd seen on my rsum that I loved cooking. She asked whether I'd be willing to take the job.

Full benefits, meals and housing included.

I agreed at once.

After graduating, so I could take better care of Walter, I'd signed up for a cooking class on my own.

The first time I made a whole table of dishes, Walter took one look and burst into tears.

He said, "Greta, being with me has made you suffer."

Smiling, I said, "It's no suffering. I do it gladly."

That day Walter finished the entire table of food, then lay on the bed too stuffed to move.

Later, he complained that my cooking was bland and tasteless, and every meal I brought him went straight into the trash.

I lowered my eyes and tucked those ugly memories away.

At least, I thought, all those years with Walter hadn't been for nothing.

If nothing else, I'd trained myself into a good cook.

On my first day, HR took me to the staff housing first.

Looking at the studio apartment in front of me, I felt a little dazed.

When I pushed the door open, I couldn't believe it.

The five-hundred-square-foot apartment came with brand-new appliances, even a dishwasher.

I'd never worked before, but even I knew staff housing usually didn't look like this.

She seemed to catch my confusion and quickly explained.

"This building was put up specifically to retain top talent. It just opened for move-in. The cafeteria staff dorms are full right now, so you'll stay here for now, and once a spot opens up over there, you can move back."

The worry hanging over me eased.

After that came the official start.

I settled in fairly well. On my very first day, the dishes I made had the employees who came to eat raving.

I couldn't help but smile.

Just then, I suddenly heard a familiar voice.

"Miss Fox, what are you doing here?"

Harrison Shaw?

How had I run into him again?

I pushed down the confusion in my chest and said, "I work here."

"What a coincidence. I work at this company too." Harrison smiled like a fox.

I froze for a second, said nothing more to him, made an excuse about being busy, and hurried away.

But on my way home after work, I ran into Harrison again.

He greeted me and said, "Miss Fox, we really are fated. Even our staff apartments are in the same place."

This time I couldn't come up with an excuse, so I just stood there and made small talk.

From what he said, I learned that Harrison lived one floor above me, and had only moved in today.

All I could say to that was that it must be fate.

In the days that followed, I kept running into Harrison, and one thing led to another until we somehow became friends.

He seemed to have some feelings for me, but he kept just the right distance, so I never had the opening to break the silence and turn him down.

This slightly strange arrangement lasted three months, until I happened to see Walter.

After the divorce, I never went looking for news about him.

But things about him kept finding their way to my ears anyway.

He was now the most eligible bachelor in Harbor City.

Young, handsome, rich, his business growing bigger by the day, about to ring the bell and go public.

Most of all, he kept himself clean, not a single scandal to his name.

Every time I heard these things, an ache would well up inside me.

Because everything they said was true.

When Walter and I first started fighting, I was convinced for a while that he'd cheated.

Why else would he have changed so much?

How else could he have said I was worth less than a masseuse?

But I dug and dug, and found nothing.

It wasn't that he'd hidden it well. He truly hadn't done anything.

He hadn't fallen for someone else, hadn't strayed. He just simply... felt I wasn't good enough for him.

It hurt beyond words.

The thought made me lift a hand to wipe the tears from the corners of my eyes.

And it was exactly in that moment, looking up, that I saw Walter standing off in the distance.

He watched me in silence, standing there at the stove, and there was no tenderness in his eyes, only pity.

The pity of someone above looking down on someone beneath.

I turned my eyes away from him.

I didn't expect Walter to walk straight toward me.

He looked at me, brows drawn, his expression one of charity.

He said, "Greta, is this what your life came to without me?"

I ignored him.

He went ahead and opened his phone, and a moment later I got a transfer notification.

Walter had sent me a hundred grand. He said, "Greta, quit. Don't do this filthy work."

I couldn't hold it in. I looked up and snapped, "Walter, are you sick in the head?"

He didn't answer. He gave me a light, careless glance and left.

The next day, I got a message from HR.

I'd been promoted.

From the kitchen to the product division. It was absurd.

Most people in that office knew me. They'd all eaten in the staff cafeteria, they'd all seen me.

Which meant everyone knew I'd gotten in through the back door.

I sighed, took Walter off my blocked list, and called to ask him, "Walter, did you do this with my job?"

He gave a soft laugh. "Greta, I happen to have a business partnership with this company, so I put in a word for you. No need to thank me."

"Who's thanking you"

I hadn't finished my angry retort when a woman's voice came through from his end. "Walt, who are you on the phone with?"

"No one."

He answered her, hung up without hesitation, and gave me no chance to say anything more.

So he'd already moved on to someone new.

I stood there stunned, not sure whether I should feel sad, only that something inside me felt hollow.

Soon enough, though, I had no room to think about anything else.

Work in the product division was far busier than the kitchen.

And the worst part was, I didn't know how to do any of it.

I understood how to balance seasonings so a dish came out best. But design, development, testing, the language of the product division might as well have been another world.

The product manager called me into her office, pressing her fingers to her brow, looking at me with a kind of weariness. "Greta, do you understand? This position was supposed to go to a top graduate from a top university. She was brilliant. But because of you, we had to let her go. So could you please put a little more into your work?"

I dropped my head, humiliated.

But that wasn't the thing that broke me.

On my fourth day on the job, an uninvited guest came to the company.

A very beautiful girl.

Heels clicking, an Herms bag on her shoulder, she walked all the way up to my desk.

She pulled off her sunglasses, tossed them aside, and said to me, "Miss Fox, is being a mistress fun?"

Then she glanced at my computer screen and let out a scornful little laugh. "You can't even write a proposal. I really don't know where you got the nerve to beg Walter Henson to pull strings and hand you this job."

I wanted to defend myself, but she gave me no chance at all. She just spun around and called out loudly, "Who's the manager here? You'll actually keep an employee who's someone's mistress?"

The product manager came first, then the director, then the vice president.

The product manager and the director only tried to coax her into settling it privately. The vice president came in bowing and scraping, all forced smiles, calling her Miss Pruitt.

In an instant I understood. These were the people from those powerful circles.

The kind of people Walter thought were worthy of him.

I clenched my fists and forced myself to explain. "I never contacted Walter Henson. The job was his own decision, not mine."

"We're already divorced. I don't want anything more to do with him either. Please, keep him in line."

Prudence Pruitt looked at me with contempt. "There's a limit to dreaming, you know. No one in the circle has ever heard of Walter Henson having a wife."

My face went pale. Walter had never brought me to a single one of his gatherings. It was true, hardly anyone knew I existed.

Seeing that I said nothing, Prudence lifted her chin at me. "Here's what we'll do, Miss Fox. If you can find someone to prove you're Walter Henson's ex-wife, I'll leave you alone. But if you can't..."

"You record a video, say you're a shameless mistress, and post it on your social media feed. How about that?"

The words had barely left her mouth when a voice rang out, faster than mine.

"I'll vouch for her."