Because somewhere between those signatures... I lost the only woman I ever loved.
Chapter 23
the best chapters of my life
Cecily
The sound of the zipper breaks the silence in my room.
I look at my reflection in the mirror. Dark pants. A cream turtleneck sweater. And over it, my heavy gray wool coat. The gloves are in my pocket. The scarf is folded neatly over the chair. It all seems so ordinary, but today, getting dressed feels like a ritual.
Today is my first day in therapy. To call it nerves would be an understatement.
After months of telling myself I’d go someday, I finally did it. I booked a session with Felicity’s therapist, Dr. Caroline. She’s been helping Felicity for years. I’ve heard her name so many times it almost feels like meeting someone I already know. Maybe that will make it easier. Or maybe nothing will.
I grab my bag and the scarf, then check the time again on my phone. Still early. But I can’t stay here any longer. The house is silent as I walk down the stairs. I wrap the scarf around my neck, fasten the buttons of my coat all the way up, and step into the cold.
In the car, I think about what I’ll say to her. Whether I should spill everything at once—the doubts, the suspicion, the betrayal. The discoveries that came after. My father’s past. The divorce.
The divorce.
It’s only been two weeks, and yet it feels like a lifetime. That day replays in my mind in flashes. The conference room, the sound of pens scratching signatures that would end more than eighteen years of a shared life.
Colin didn’t speak. Neither did I.
We both pretended to listen, nodding at the lawyers as if any of it mattered. I already knew every clause, every word. We’d been through enough drafts to turn heartbreak into legal language. He didn’t contest a single thing.
Everything was divided equally. He let me choose first, and I gave him the house. I didn’t want it. Not anymore. That place stopped being a home long before the papers were signed.
The only real point of tension was his insistence on paying spousal support. But I refused.
Not out of pride. Not out of bitterness. Just because I didn’t need it, and I didn’t want it. We’d built enough together—assets, accounts, investments—to make sure we’d both thrive apart. I have my work, my column, the blog that brings in more than enough on its own.
When they slid the papers across the table, I signed them without hesitation. It wasn’t easy, but I’d been mourning us for so long that signing those papers felt almost like mercy.
That room didn’t end our marriage; that happened the day he chose another woman. It only gave me a place to lay its bones to rest.
When Colin finally left, the door closed with a sound I’ll never forget. It echoed through me like a final heartbeat. I satthere for a long time after, motionless. Breathing. Not crying. Just waiting for the world to start again.
That night, I did cry.
Not with rage, but with an exhausted kind of sorrow that comes after acceptance. I cried for the woman I used to be, for the love I thought would survive anything. For the home we built and lost. For every version of us that would never exist again.
But between the sobs, I made myself a promise.
That it would be the last time. The last night I would cry for Colin. The last night I would let what he did decide how I felt. The last night I would give our marriage, or its ruin, any power over me.
Never again.
As soon as I step into the room, she greets me with a light handshake and asks me to call her simply Caroline.
We exchange polite words, the kind meant to fill the silence without saying anything real. I nod, murmur a few answers, and sit on the sofa across from her while she finishes settling in.
My eyes wander around the room. It’s minimal, but intentional. Soft light filters through gauzy curtains. An abstract blue painting hangs above a low bookshelf. A folded blanket rests on the armchair beside me. Nothing about this space screams therapy.
When Caroline looks back at me, she asks me to tell her a bit more about what brought me here.
“I don’t know why I’m here,” I blurt out. “I mean... I do know. But it doesn’t really make sense.”
