Chapter 4

The words emptied the room of sound.

Everyone stared at me like I'd said something monstrous, something no decent person would ever say.

Several seconds passed before my mother found her voice, and it shook when she spoke.

"Irvin, what is wrong with you?"

"Monica just clawed her way back from death. You haven't said one kind word to her, you haven't held the baby once, and all you can think about is tallying up medical bills?"

"Would you really rather divorce her and give up your wife and child than part with a single cent?"

I looked at my mother and answered evenly.

"Mom, it's not that I won't pay. It's that we agreed to split everything down the middle."

"Whoever runs up a cost covers it themselves."

"I can't just play the sucker and eat it all because she gave me a kid."

My father-in-law's eyes went red. He lunged forward and seized me by the collar.

"Irvin, you animal!"

"I'll beat you to death today, I swear it!"

He drew back his fist to swing at me.

Godfrey moved fast, stepping in to pry him off and defuse it.

Then he turned to me, urgent.

"Irvin, look where we are. How can you still be spouting this kind of poison?"

"Nobody cares about your accounting rules right now. This is not the time. Apologize to Monica."

Arnold was looking at me too, baffled.

"We've known you over twenty years. You are not some money-grubbing man, we know that much."

"What's really going on with you? Why have you turned so cold all of a sudden?"

I smoothed my collar and spoke without hurry.

"The divorce was her family's idea. If we're separating, then every expense should be settled clean, so there's nothing to squabble over later."

Every word out of my mouth was about money. My mother-in-law looked at Monica with unbearable grief and broke into sobs.

"My poor, foolish girl. You risked your life to give him a child, and in the end he can't even let a medical bill go uncounted."

"A man like that, what is there left worth holding on to?"

Monica's already fragile body swayed in that moment as if it would give out.

She looked at me, face drained white, the whole of her breaking apart with grief.

She was silent for a long time before the words came, choked.

"Irvin, at first I thought your sudden split-the-bills thing was just some passing madness."

"So no matter how you treated me, I bore it."

"I kept telling myself that once the baby came, once you saw our child, you'd come back to your senses."

"I thought this baby being born could take us back to how we were."

"Now I only want to ask you one thing. In your heart, are the baby and I really worth nothing at all?"

I looked at that face full of ruined hope, and I was silent for two seconds.

In the end I only said one thing.

"The rules can't be broken."

Five words, and they shattered the last light in Monica's eyes.

She let out a bitter laugh.

"I understand now."

I couldn't be bothered to argue with them any longer.

"I have things to do. I'll go first."

"If you need me for the divorce paperwork, you can reach me anytime."

With that, I turned and walked out of the room.

But I'd barely taken two steps when a huge crash came from behind me.

And right after it, screams tore through the air.

"Monica jumped!"