Gwen’s square flickered as she leaned closer. “We fight because you go for the jugular every time. You don’t leave room for anything but your crisis in that moment.”
“And you don’t fight at all,” Maggie shot back, her voice sharper than she meant, bouncing back tinny through her laptop speakers. “You shut down. You disappear into work, into silence, until I’m screaming just to hear something back. Do you have any idea how lonely that is? To be married and still alone?”
Gwen’s voice rose, steadier than Maggie wanted. “Do you have any idea how exhausting it is to walk into a room andnever know if I’m going to be greeted with love or a land mine?”
The guest room felt too small, her chest too tight. Maggie stared at the square of her own kitchen, the woman sitting in it, the life she used to live.
Her throat burned. “This is exactly it. You want order, I want connection, and neither of us is getting it. I think—” She forced the word out, jagged and final. “I think the only answer is divorce.”
The word didn’t echo. It just hung between their rectangles, heavy as stone.
Maggie’s pulse thudded in her ears, louder than the faint hum of Colette’s guest room radiator. Her cursor blinked at the bottom of the Zoom window, taunting her withLeave Meetinglike an escape hatch she didn’t dare use.
In Gwen’s box, nothing moved. Gwen sat still, hands folded, as steady and unreachable as a statue.
Maggie tried to swallow, but her mouth was sandpaper. The word she’d said —divorce— still scraped at her insides, like it had hooked on something deep.
She hated how badly she wanted Gwen to interrupt, to argue, to refuse. To sayno, we can fix this, I still choose you.But Gwen didn’t even blink.
A wave of nausea rose sharp in her gut. She shifted against the headboard, grounding herself in the borrowed space: the lavender-scented sheets, the faint creak of pipes in the walls, nothing of hers. Not her room. Not her house. Not her life.
Dr. Elowen was sitting calmly in her own square, giving them time.
The silence grew unbearable.
She cleared her throat, voice shaky. “Say something.”
Gwen’s square stayed still, only the faint rise and fall of her chest proving the connection hadn’t frozen. Maggiegripped her mug tighter, wishing she could reach through the screen, shake her, force her into motion.
Because silence had always been Gwen’s sharpest blade.
Maggie blinked hard, vision stinging. Divorce. She’d meant it. She’d said it. But saying it out loud didn’t feel like relief, didn’t feel like strength. It felt like watching herself step off a ledge in slow motion, body waiting for the crash that hadn’t come yet.
“Do you believe that too, Gwen?” Dr. Elowen asked softly. “That divorce is the only option?”
For a long moment, Gwen said nothing.
And Maggie — staring at the woman she’d once believed would always choose her — felt the answer settle in her bones, whether Gwen spoke it or not.
Gwen didn’t look at her. She looked past the camera, at some fixed point only she could see, and said, evenly, “If that’s what you want, I’ll give it to you.”
The words were clean. Bloodless. Like a doctor delivering terrible test result news.
Maggie’s mouth went dry. For half a second she wanted to snatch them back —no, not like that, not so easy— but the reflex died as quickly as it came. Of course Gwen would make even this tidy.
Dr. Elowen’s voice was soft. “What comes up for you hearing that, Maggie?”
She stared at the little square of her own face. Puffy-eyed. A hoodie with a ketchup stain. Colette’s camp movie posters over the bed. “I don’t know.”
A beat. The therapist waited. Gwen’s shoulders were so straight they looked painful.
“We don’t have to decide anything final today,” Dr. Elowen said. “A statement of intent isn’t the same as filing paperwork.”
Gwen nodded, still not meeting the camera. “I’ll contact a mediator. It’s cleaner.”
There it was again: cleaner. Maggie pictured bleach wipes and color-coded folders and the way Gwen’s hands had felt on her in Vegas, desperate and sure. The two images didn’t reconcile. Maybe that was the point.
“Okay,” Maggie said. The syllables felt like swallowing a coin. “A mediator.”
