He laughed once.
I did too.
Then the laugh disappeared.
“Will you ever forgive me?”
I thought about it.
“Probably.”
His face changed.
“But forgiveness doesn’t give you anything.”
He looked confused.
“It doesn’t restore access.”
“It doesn’t change property.”
“It doesn’t make us friends.”
“It just means eventually I may stop carrying this emotionally.”
He nodded.
“That makes sense.”
Then he asked the question I knew was coming.
“Do you regret going to Kuala Lumpur?”
“No.”
He looked surprised.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Even knowing what happened?”
“Yes.”
I leaned forward.
“You don’t get to own those three years.”
He stared at me.
“I worked.”
“I built things.”
“I became better at my job.”
“I lived in another country.”
“I made friends.”
“I learned who I was when I wasn’t standing beside you.”
I paused.
“You misused what I sent home.”
“That doesn’t make the whole experience yours.”
He looked down.
“I never thought of it that way.”
“I know.”
That was the problem.
The divorce became final on a gray February morning.
No dramatic scene.
No O’Hare-style reveal.
Just signatures.
Audrey shook my hand outside the courtroom.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
“Actually?”
I thought.
“Yes.”
She smiled.
“That usually takes longer.”
“It took fourteen months.”
“Fair.”
I went home.
My condo.
Actually mine now.
The same place I had once planned to surprise Corbin.
I changed almost everything.
Furniture.
Bedroom.
Paint.
Lighting.
Not because I wanted to erase him.
Because I had lived there only briefly between overseas assignments.
The condo had never fully become mine.
Now it did.
I turned the second bedroom into an office.
No nursery.
That decision hurt.
Then, strangely, relieved me.
I was thirty-seven.
Children were still possible.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
For the first time, I stopped treating motherhood like an appointment I had missed because someone else changed the calendar.
I could decide later.
Or decide no.
The choice finally belonged to me.
Six months after the divorce, Mara emailed me.
I almost deleted it.
Then read.
Sariah,
