Chapter 1

1: 1

On her deathbed, my wife called our son and daughter to her side and told them that after she died, they were to bury her beside her first love.

They did as she asked, and they barred me from her funeral.

They said it was my fault, that I had kept their mother from finding true love and driven her into a depression that killed her.

After she was buried, my children and I had a violent argument, and in the middle of it my blood pressure spiked and I suffered a brain hemorrhage.

They watched me calmly, and let me go cold.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day my wife's first love returned to the country.

She said an old classmate was coming home and she wanted to play the good host, that it had been years since she'd cooked herself, and this time she had prepared a full spread.

After a few drinks, she suddenly looked at me. "Wyatt Dickerson, let's separate."

Our son and daughter were both watching me, hope in their eyes.

Last time I reacted hard. I flipped the table, thinking I could hold on to our love, hold on to our family.

But behind my back she was quietly moving our assets, funding her old love's career, until I had nothing left.

This time, I would leave her with nothing, and with her name in ruins.

I looked at her. "Fine."

"……"

She froze for a moment, then took out the divorce agreement she'd clearly prepared in advance. "If you agree, sign it."

It was all spelled out in black and white. She wanted custody of both children, and I was to pay sixty percent of my income every month as child support for the two of them.

As for the assets she and I shared, she wanted ninety percent.

I looked at Penelope Joyce. "You walk away with nothing."

"Wyatt, I have no intention of fighting with you."

She looked at me calmly. "I've consulted a lawyer. An uncontested divorce is the best way to do this. That way we don't waste anyone's time."

"I could also file for a contested divorce, and I'd definitely get everything I'm asking for."

"I might even get more."

She looked at me. "All these years of marriage, I'm the one who held this family together. You gave it too little of your attention."

"Away on business about three hundred days a year. You weren't even home for the holidays."

"You spent less than two months a year at home. This family never had any warmth to it."

"And when you did come back, you never spent time with the kids. In the eyes of the law, all of that gets me more."

"Giving you ten percent of the assets is the best deal you're going to get."

"I'm only choosing an uncontested divorce out of respect for our years together."

I looked at the food on the table. It looked good, smelled good, tasted good. It was the first time in all these years I'd eaten something she cooked.

Before, every time I came back from a work trip, she said I cared too little about the family and made me take over all the housework.

As for those three hundred days a year on the road, that was what she demanded. She said I had to be ambitious while I was young, that I had to fall in line with what my bosses arranged if I wanted to climb faster.

And traveling meant more money. Triple pay over the holidays. You couldn't pass up a chance to earn like that.

Whenever I said I was tired, or said I missed home, it set her off. She'd call me a loser.

Over time, I chose silence.

And as for not spending time with the kids, that part was true.

During my time off, she pushed me to drive for Uber and deliver food, so no, I didn't have enough time for the children.

But what she didn't know was that, because I'd been reborn, I now knew a certain secret.