Part 1She Signed My Divorce By Mistake

After Margot’s affair came to light and she crawled back to our marriage, I gave her three chances. Three opportunities to meet with that boy and cut the cord for good.

She made the most of every second. She took him to dinners, spent hours at his side in pottery classes, and stayed overnight at the hospital when he claimed he was ill. When she finally returned for the last time, she purged every trace of him—every gift, every photo—and reached for my hand with a look of practiced sincerity.

“Trust me, Nick,” she whispered. “I’ll never betray you again.”

I almost believed her. Until the night my car collided with his.

As I sat dazed behind the wheel, the boy—sobbing and frantic—called for help. I didn’t hear his voice; I heard Margot’s best friend through the car’s Bluetooth speakers.

“Margot, don’t go,” her friend warned. “You’ve used up all three of your passes. If you go to him now, Nick is definitely going to file for divorce.”

Then came Margot’s voice, cold and brimming with a terrifying sense of security. “Nick was a foster kid. He spent his whole life with no one to love him, no one to care if he lived or died. He’s more afraid of being alone than he is of me. He won't leave.”

She paused, her tone dropping to a conspiratorial murmur. “Just keep this between us. I know what I’m doing. This is the last time. I promise.”

I lay back against the seat, blood trickling down my face, feeling a chill that had nothing to do with the winter air. The crying boy in the other car, the one she was so desperately trying to protect, was the very same ghost I thought she’d exorcised.

Twenty minutes later, Margot—the woman who had sworn her life to our home—raced into the emergency room like her world was ending.

* * *

Through the thin fabric of the hospital curtain, I heard Margot’s voice, a jagged mix of heartbreak and fury.

“Why didn’t you call me immediately? Do you think the number I gave you is just for show?”

Toby, the boy, propped himself up, his face a mask of calculated innocence. “You said your husband only gave you three chances. I was scared…”

“Three chances? To hell with that!” Margot’s voice rose, thick with emotion. “If you need me, you call me. Do you have any idea what I’d do if something happened to you?”

I listened in the silence of the adjacent bay, my vision blurring. When the crash happened, I was the one who was conscious. I was the one who called her first. I called twenty-six times. She didn't pick up once.

Toby called once, and she answered within seconds.

She knew I had no one. She assumed I would simply wait, as I always did, for the crumbs of her attention.

The nurse walked in to change my dressings, pulling back the curtain. The white-hot rage on Margot’s face—directed at the "other driver"—froze the moment she saw me.

She blinked, her brain struggling to catch up. But the first words out of her mouth weren’t Are you okay? or Thank God you’re alive.

“Did you stalk him?” she snapped, her eyes narrowing. “Did you crash into him on purpose just to see if I’d show up?”

I stared at her. Ever since I’d discovered the affair, she had guarded Toby’s identity like a state secret. “His family is struggling,” she’d said. “If you drag him into our mess, it’ll ruin his life.”

Yet, she had no problem broadcasted my history as a lonely orphan to everyone in her social circle. She wanted the world to know how much I "needed" her, how much of a charity case our marriage truly was.

I swallowed the bitterness rising in my throat and forced a hollow laugh. “That’s four, Margot. You broke the deal.”

When I had first demanded a divorce, she had stood on the balcony of our penthouse, threatening to jump. “If you leave me, I’m done! You’re the only person I’ve ever loved!”

I had softened. I had been weak. I gave her those three chances to wrap up her "affair." I had been naive enough to think I was winning the war for my own marriage. Today, the world had decided to slap me awake.

“Does it really matter if it’s three or four?” Margot hissed, leaning in so Toby wouldn’t hear. “He was in an accident. Are you really so heartless that you’d expect me to just leave him here?”

I looked at her. What was there left to say?

Should I tell her that Toby had walked away with a scraped knee, while my shoulder required ten stitches? Should I tell her I was the one who called the ambulance for both of us?

Toby called out from the other side of the curtain. “Margot? Is the police report okay? Am I going to have to pay for the damage?”

She rushed back to his side, her voice instantly turning into a soothing coo. “Don’t worry about it, honey. The other driver is fine. Just focus on resting.”

The other driver.

I lay there and smiled. My shoulder burned, but it was nothing compared to the slow, agonizing death of my heart.

Margot’s only act of "mercy" was signing a stack of hospital forms on my bedside table while I drifted in and out of a feverish sleep. If she had bothered to look—truly look—at what she was signing, she would have seen the document tucked between the bills.

My signature was already on it. The petition for divorce.