After My Husband Rejected My Proposal, I Chose Divorce

Prologue:

My friends never liked coming over, all because of one rule my husband kept.

Nothing in the house could be moved from where it sat.

The teacups had to stay on the coffee table. The throw pillows had to sit at both ends of the couch.

Even the couch itself had to face a certain angle, the one that looked straight out at the mimosa tree past the window.

All because these were his late wife's habits.

I fought him over it more times than I could count. He'd soothe me every time, and then everything went right back to how it was.

There was nothing I could do, so I told myself to stop caring.

Until he rejected my city planning proposal, and I marched straight into his office.

"Professor Delgado, you're throwing out a proposal I stayed up all night on, over one tree standing in the middle of the road?"

"Did you forget I had a car accident because of that tree, and lost a baby over it?"

"It's just moving it somewhere else. Why is that impossible?"

Not a flicker of feeling on his face.

"Doreen planted that mimosa. She loved sitting on the couch watching the blossoms fall."

"Worst case, take a detour to work from now on. It's only an extra hour. I can drive you."

Looking at his face, I went cold all over.

If that tree had put down roots in his heart, then I'd be the one to leave.

Chapter One

That mimosa tree grew right in the middle of the road.

I wasn't a good driver. The very first time I got behind the wheel, I hit it.

I suggested we move then. Earl Delgado refused, said it was too much trouble.

A month later, swerving to dodge a delivery trike coming the wrong way, I slammed into it again.

I was barely over a month along. I lost the baby.

I cried and begged to move, but Earl held me with this pleading look on his face.

"Rita, I've lived here so long. I get attached to places."

"I know it's a lot to ask you to take the detour. Or I can drive you."

For three years after that, my daily commute cost me an extra hour each way.

Until one day I was late for work, and I couldn't take it anymore. I called in a crew to cut the tree down.

Earl threw himself in front of it like a man out of his mind.

"Doreen planted this. Nobody touches it!"

That was when it hit me. It wasn't just the couch and the trinkets in the house that couldn't be moved. Even this tree was a shadow of the dead wife he couldn't stop thinking about.

Three years. I swallowed it, and swallowed it again.

This time, with the city planning project, he'd handed it to me.

I thought it was a chance to say goodbye to the past.

But Earl only wanted to live in the past.

I squared my proposal and stacked the pages.

"This tree is blocking the middle of the road. It's a serious hazard to pedestrians. My plan is legal, it's up to code, and I refuse to change it."

Earl pinched the bridge of his nose, irritated. "Rita, why are you so determined to fight a tree?"

I pointed at my stomach and gave a bitter laugh. "Shouldn't that be my question for you? Just how long do you plan to guard this tree?"

"I lost my child. My uterus is damaged. I may never conceive again. Haven't I paid enough?"

He faltered, but his face stayed cold.

"Rita, don't drag your personal feelings into work. It makes you look very unprofessional."

"If you can't do this proposal, then I'll hand it to someone who can."

He was the lead on the city redevelopment. He held veto power.

Tears rolled down my face, but he never looked. He kept his eyes on the computer.

On the screen was his Proposal Rationale for Preserving Special Structures and Vegetation, thousands of words packed tight across the page.

And I understood, all at once, that more than three years of us caring for each other, side by side, still counted for less than a wife five years in the grave.

I didn't argue anymore. I slammed the door on my way out of his office.

On the drive home, only then did Earl text.

Rita, give me a little more time. I'll pick out a new place, and we'll move.

But the old house can't be touched. That's my line.

I didn't want to say a single word. I just shut off the phone.

Back in front of the building, I saw the mimosa tree again.

The railing around it had been carefully reinforced, the trunk painted white against insects.

Where I'd once split the bark, tiny stainless steel pins held the seam together, so it could knit itself whole again.

The weak light of the streetlamp fell over it, cold, like a silent sneer.

I laughed at myself.

Back home, Earl texted: Something came up tonight, I'll be back late. Be good and eat your dinner.

I glanced at the calendar. The seventh of July. His late wife's birthday.

Every year on this day, he took a cake to her grave and lingered a few hours, then went to catch up with her parents.

He didn't skip it even the time I was still in the hospital after the miscarriage. I'd long gotten used to it.

Staring at the nursery, sealed off for three years now, I suddenly wanted to go in and look.

After the miscarriage, Earl had locked the door and hidden the key, afraid it would upset me.

I pushed it open, and froze.

The whole room was portraits of the same woman, in white dresses of every style, each one signed in the bottom right corner with two words: Doreen Sullivan.

That was Earl's handwriting.

The moment I saw the portraits clearly, every drop of blood in me seemed to freeze.

She and I were half alike.

No wonder, at that first blind date years ago, a man as aloof as Earl had chosen me at a single glance.

No wonder his friends always looked at me with that strange pity.

No wonder he'd given me a whole closet of white dresses.

So I was nothing but a stand-in, kept in the dark from the very start.

I wiped the tears from my face and took the scissors to every last dress.

Earl, since your dead wife has taken root and grown inside your heart.

She won't leave, so I will.

The next morning Earl carried a bowl of congee out of the kitchen.

"It's pouring outside. Let me drive you in a bit, it won't take me out of my way."

After the car accident, after I lost the baby, he'd said the same thingthat he would drive me to work every day.

A week later he broke that promise.

Because Doreen's parents claimed she'd come to them in a dream, asking for a bouquet of mimosa flowers laid at her grave every morning.

I used to wait for him every single day. Now there was nothing left to wait for.

"No need."

"Earl, let's get a divorce."

His hand froze over the bowl, and he lowered his voice to soothe me. "Still angry about yesterday? We agreedwork and home stay separate."

I stirred the shrimp congee with the spoon, mechanically.

"Three years, and you still don't remember I'm allergic to shrimp."

"Shrimp was Doreen's favorite."

"Earl, I'm tired."

Before he could say anything else, I grabbed my coat and headed for the door.

He came after me and pulled me into the car. "I don't agree to it!"

Then, ever thoughtful, he switched on the seat heater and pressed a hand warmer into my arms.

"You can't even take care of yourself. How would you manage without me?"

That one line nearly broke me.

The heart I'd just hardened went soft again, against my will.

But we'd been driving barely ten minutes when Cara called. "Earl, the rain's so heavy, our old place is leaking everywherecould you come take a look?"

He agreed without a moment's hesitation.

At the same time he hit the brake and gave me an apologetic look.

Before he could speak, I opened the door myself and got out.

He was always like this.

He remembered how I lived, remembered my cycle, and still kept room in his heart for another woman.

A wave of dizziness slammed into me. I hadn't eaten breakfast, and my blood sugar had crashed.

I'd gotten this condition in the first place from starving myself to slim down and fit into the dress Earl bought me.

Now that I thought about it, the dress must have been sized for his late wife.

The ride app showed fifty-three people still ahead of me in line.

So I texted my manager to take the day off and started inching home, bracing myself against the wall.

Rain poured down my collar, and the wet clothes clung to me.

The wind cut through me until my teeth chattered, and my vision kept blacking out in waves from the low blood sugar.

By the time I finally reached the gate of the complex, a dull ache dragged low in my belly.

Like an invisible hand stirring, over and over, until my abdomen seized up again in a violent cramp.

My legs gave out and I went down hard into the standing water.

When I opened my eyes again, my mother was keeping watch beside the bed.

She held my hand and comforted me. "Rita, take it easy."

"As long as we get you healthy again, there'll be another baby someday"

My mind went blank. "What baby?"

She pulled me into her arms, aching for me. "Silly girl. You were already a month along."

A month. A month, again.

Despair and regret flooded over me like the tide.

I held on to my mother and cried until I lost my voice, and told her everything from the last two days.

When she'd heard it all, she was shaking with rage. "That bastard Earl. How could he treat you like this."

"I came this time to buy back your father's last work, City in the Old Alley."

"Once I've got your father's belongings back in a week, I'm taking you away from here."

Earl never called, not once, the whole way home.

After I signed the discharge papers, I took my mother home to stay with me.

She had actually come to my place once, back in the first year of my marriage.

All she did was swap the wilted mimosa blossoms on the table for the roses I loved, and Earl flew into a rage.

He and I had a huge fight over it, and after that, no matter how much she missed me, she never came again.

She said as long as I was happy, that was enough.

Back then Earl filled my whole world, and I actually let it stand.

From now on, my mother comes first.

I opened the door and froze where I stood.

Doreen's parents were sitting in the living room watching TV, and Earl was beside them, peeling an apple.

He heard the door and stood up. "Your mother's here? Why didn't you say something first?"

I ignored him and led my mother toward the guest room.

Earl followed behind, explaining. "Rita, I didn't know she was coming."

"Doreen's parents' place has a leak. I thought I'd have them stay a few days."

I turned it back on him. "And now that you know, what changes? You going to send them off to a hotel?"

That shut him up.

In his mind, only Doreen's parents would ever count as his in-laws.

Three years married, and every holiday he handpicked gifts to send to the Sullivans.

For my mother, he never had so much as a word of good wishes.

Every New Year's Eve, he went to sit up through the night with the Sullivans.

And every New Year, I went back to my mother's alone.

The first year she still asked me, "How come your husband didn't come with you?"

Later she understood how humiliated I was, and she stopped asking.

Seeing the hard palm mat tossed carelessly out on the balcony, I clenched my fists.

It was from my mother's first visit. I'd told Earl she had a severe herniated disc, and he'd gone with me specially to pick it out.

He was just about to explain something when Cara Sullivan said, slow and unhurried, "Rita, dear, Earl agreed to let us stay a few days. There are plenty of hotels nearby. Have him find a nice one for your mother."

I was about to argue when my mother took my hand. "Rita, you're still weak. Don't waste your anger on people like this. We'll go stay elsewhere."

"But your back"

"It's just a few days. I'll be fine."

My mother and I went downstairs, Earl trailing behind.

"Rita, it's still thundering out there. Let me drive you to a hotel."

I kept walking without looking back.

As we passed the mimosa tree, a dull crack of thunder split open right above us.

A thick branch snapped and came straight down.

My mother pulled me into her arms in a flash.

The broken branch slammed onto her back. She gave a muffled grunt, and the color drained from her face.

"Mom!" I clawed at the branch on her back like a woman gone mad.

"Don't touch it!" Earl knocked my hands away and lifted the branch off as if it were something precious.

He scooped my mother up to take her to the hospital, but Cara caught his arm.

"Earl, Doreen planted that tree with her own hands. The split's so big. If the rain soaks into it any longer, it really might not survive."

Earl's outstretched arm froze in midair.

He paused two seconds, then, like a man making up his mind, "Rita, I'll call Henry to drive you two to the hospital."

"I'll stay behind first and get the tree grafted back."

I couldn't believe it, but I accepted it soon enough.

Right. That tree mattered more than anything.

Once we reached the hospital, a message from Earl came through:

Rita, the break on the trunk is pretty bad. I need to bring in a botanist, so I won't be able to get to the hospital these next few days. Take good care of Mom, and remember to eat on time.

Reading his tepid little show of concern, all I felt was hypocrisy.

A week later, the day of the auction finally came, and Mom and I went with every cent of our savings.

Lot number 12 was Shadows of the Old City Lanes, my father's final work before he died, the only original in existence.

Thankfully, not many people in the room cared about the set. After we bid five hundred thousand, no one else called out.

"Five hundred thousand, going for the third time." Just as the auctioneer was about to bring down the hammer, a voice called out from the back rows:

"Eight hundred thousand."

I whipped around and saw Earl in a black suit, walking into the room with a bidding paddle raised, Doreen's parents right behind him.

I stared at him, my voice cold: "Earl, this is my father's estate. You're taking this from me too?"

Before he could answer, Cara beside him dabbed at her eyes, sobbing. "Earl, you promised us. You said you'd let Doreen see this set of photos tomorrow, on her fifth memorial day."

Earl soothed her. "Mom, don't worry. This set has the last images of Doreen while she was alive. I'll bring the photos to her grave."

Hearing his answer, I couldn't stop shaking all over. "Earl, because of Doreen you killed my baby, you got my mother hurt. Isn't that enough?"

"And now, for her, you're taking the last thing my father left behind too?"

He stepped forward and reached for me. "Rita, I'm not trying to take it. I told the staff to put this set in your name. After it's shown at the memorial tomorrow, I'll give it to you."

"Don't touch me!" Looking at the hand he stretched toward me, all I felt was sick.

The staff had just placed the photos in my hands when Cara rushed over to grab them.

Earl, shielding Cara, knocked into me on the follow-through.

I lost my balance, my stomach slamming into the armrest of the chair, and the pain exploded through me.

The wound they'd stitched a week ago tore open again.

I curled up against the pain, cold sweat running down.

"Rita!" Earl's pupils shrank, and he lunged to come to me.

Mom got to me first, holding me up and taking me to the hospital.

As we passed Earl, I stopped and handed him the divorce papers.

"Earl, we're getting divorced."

Through the haze, I thought I heard him say, "No. Never."

When I woke, I saw a message from Earl: Rita, wait for me. I'll take Doreen's parents home, then come to the hospital to find you.

That same line again. I let out a scornful laugh and blocked every way he had to reach me.

After settling the Sullivan parents, Earl drove to the hospital to find me.

He pushed open the door to the ward and found it empty.

The bed was neatly made. The only thing on the nightstand was a medical chart.

He picked it up, and the color drained from his face.

It stated plainly: Patient Rita Pruitt, due to prolonged malnutrition combined with repeated injury to the uterus, has suffered severe and irreversible uterine damage, and has lost the ability to bear children.