Chapter 4

For the next few days, I stopped noticing her completely.

Every chore in that apartment used to be mine.

Washing the dishes, mopping the floor, doing the laundry, tidying the rooms.

For three days I touched none of it.

The dishes piled up in the sink until they stank, clothes lay heaped on the couch, and the floor was gray with dust and trash.

At first Queenie didn't care at all.

She was certain I wouldn't dare do anything, certain that in a day or two I'd cave and come coax her.

She still went out every day done up and pretty, gone before I woke, back after dark.

Every day out with Quinn, eating, shopping, catching a movie.

And when she came home she made a point of rubbing it in.

"Quinn's new car is gorgeous. So comfortable to ride in."

"His friends all say we make a great pair. He's got good taste."

I kept my head down over my food the whole time and said nothing.

The deader I went, the more it wore on her patience.

"Hugh, can't you make something of yourself?"

"A relative dies, so what? Who are you moping at, day after day?"

"I already told you, even with the money, there's no guarantee he'd have lived!"

I looked up at her. "Then where's the two hundred thousand?"

Her face flipped in an instant, righteous as anything.

"That's my own money! I'll spend it however I want! It's got nothing to do with you!"

When I heard that, whatever was left in me went flat and still.

Three years of salary, hundreds of thousands in savings, every cent scraped together by me.

I'd handed it all over, and in the end it had become, in her mouth, "her own money."

No money to save a life, but plenty to throw at her first love.

This woman wasn't stingy. She wasn't shortsighted.

She was cold-blooded, selfish, and two-faced down to the bone.

Those few days, whenever I had a moment, I quietly packed my own things.

My clothes, my documents, my bank cards, everything that was mine.

I made no announcement. I sorted it all, bit by bit.

At the same time I printed out the last six months of transfer records from her bank card.

I didn't know until I checked. Once I did, the cold went all the way through me.

In just half a month,

on top of the two hundred thousand down payment, there were the scattered transfers, the cash gifts, the expenses she'd covered.

The money she'd spent on Quinn came to a full two hundred fifty thousand, and then some.

Two hundred fifty thousand.

Enough to save my cousin's life three times over.

Enough to let him get proper treatment, recover properly, live...

But in her heart, an outsider would always matter more than my own family.

A few days earlier, my aunt had called me.

The call was short. She didn't curse me. She didn't blame me.

There was only a thick, cold distance.

"Hugh, don't come around anymore."

"Every time I see you, I picture my son lying on that operating table, waiting for money to save him, waiting himself to death."

"Our two families, let's end it here..."

The moment she hung up, my tears finally fell.

The closest family I had in this life had cut me off for good.

I owed my cousin a debt I could never repay, not in this lifetime.

Slowly Queenie sensed something was off, because I didn't get angry, didn't fight, didn't get jealous, didn't coax her.

Zero emotion toward her. Zero expectation. Zero response.

She started to panic.

She started cooking on her own, tidying the place on her own, bringing up things to talk about, even turning soft and clingy with me.

But inside, there truly wasn't a ripple.

I didn't love her anymore, and I didn't hate her either.

All that was left was numbness, and a heart that had given up.

This marriage had rotted through long ago.

Saturday morning, I rode out to the cemetery alone.

The weather was good, hard sunlight, hot enough to sting the skin.

I stood in front of my cousin's headstone for a long, long time.

In the photo on the stone, he was still smiling.

I crouched down and said a lot to him.

"Cousin, I'm sorry."

"I was too foolish, too spineless. I couldn't see people for what they were."

"I married a cold-hearted woman, and it cost you your life for nothing. You looked out for me my whole life, and I couldn't look out for you even once."

The more I spoke, the less I could hold it back, and the tears rolled down like beads off a snapped string.

"Cousin, don't worry."

"From now on I'll take good care of your parents. When they're old, I'll provide for them."

"I'll carry your duty to them, make up for everything I owe. I won't be a fool again..."

I sat in front of the headstone for more than half an hour before I got up and started home.

I got back and the apartment door was open.

Queenie sat at the vanity, carefully doing her makeup and picking out clothes.

By the looks of it, another night out with Quinn, some party or gathering.

On the coffee table lay a fresh transfer receipt, held down under something.

I picked it up without thinking. Fifty thousand, just sent.

Payee: Quinn Lawrence.

Fifty thousand again.

Half a month. Three hundred thousand.

I stood there holding that slip of paper, calm in a way that was frightening.

Queenie saw me, and her eyes flickered, a little guilty.

But she stayed stubborn.

"He's short on cash lately. Just tiding him over for a bit, he'll pay it back soon."

I looked at her and spoke quietly.

"My cousin was only eighty thousand short of living."

"You wouldn't give a cent. You sent him eighty cents to humiliate him, and watched him wait himself to death..."

"But your first love, a car, a loan, spending money, three hundred thousand you just hand over."

"Queenie, put your hand on your heart and ask yourself. Are you even human?"

With every last selfish thing dragged into the open, she couldn't keep her face, and she rushed to grab me.

"I was wrong, okay? I'll never send him money again!"

"Let the past be the past! Let's make this work! From now on I'll be good to you, I'll make this marriage work!"

Out of habit she wanted to pout, to go soft, to smooth it over the way she always had.

I took a small step back, out of reach of her hand.

I looked at her one last time.

Looked at the woman I'd loved for three years, bent for three years, given to for three years.

Every reluctance, every time I'd swallowed it, every compromise, every fantasy, all of it went to zero in that moment.

My voice was quiet, very calm, no anger, no shouting, only a letting go that was complete.

"There's no letting the past be the past."

"Let's get divorced."