The Lease My Husband Never Checked

The lawyer’s office on the square in Sabine Fork has one window unit that never quite keeps up, and that morning it rattled the whole time Ardell slid the divorce papers across the table like he was closing on a truck.

“Sign here, and we’re done being a bad decision for each other,” he said. “Four years, Elberta. I think that’s a fair run for what this was.”

Florene laughed from the loveseat by the door, not even bothering to look up from her phone. She had worn her good boots to watch a marriage end, and she smelled like she’d stopped somewhere for coffee first.

“What this was,” I repeated, and I made myself say it slow so my voice wouldn’t shake. “Say what you mean, Ardell.”

He leaned back in the chair like he had all the time in the world, because as far as he knew, he did.

“You were folding napkins at the Sabine Fork Diner when I met you,” he said. “No people to speak of. No money. I gave you a house, a name people in this town respect, four years of a life you never would’ve had otherwise. And I’m not walking away with nothing to show for it either. So here.” He slid a plain gray debit card across the table until it stopped against my hand. “There’s enough on that to get you a room over the hardware store for a couple months. Consider it generous, considering the prenup says you’re not entitled to a dime of what I built.”

I did not touch the card. I did not touch the pen.

“She won’t cry about it either,” Florene said, finally looking up. “She never does. You know what she served the Tuckers last month when Ardell brought them home for supper? Squirrel stew. In a crystal bowl. I about died.”

“She’s not made for that side of things,” Ardell said, and there was something almost fond in the way he said it, the way you’d talk about a dog that never quite learned the trick. “Never was. I should’ve seen it sooner.”