Frozen Vengeance: The Last Meal

chapter 4

What She Never Told Them

Isabel didn't sleep that night.

She lay in the dark beside a husband who no longer felt like one, running the math on nine years the way you'd run the math on a business deal that had suddenly, catastrophically flipped against you.

She'd married Rafi because he was steady, because he was grateful in a way that made him easy to manage, because a man raised without much would never question why his in-laws needed "temporary" help so often, or why his wife came home late from "board meetings" three nights a week that first year, back when Miguel was still growing inside her and the timeline didn't quite add up if anyone bothered to count.

Nobody had bothered. That had been the whole point.

Marco had wanted nothing to do with a scandal that might cost him his own family's approval — a mestizo surname, an Ateneo law degree, a career that couldn't survive being publicly attached to someone else's pregnant girlfriend. Rafi, devoted and desperate for a family of his own, had been the solution. Marry fast, claim the timeline was close enough, let a man who loved too easily fill in the blanks himself.

It had worked flawlessly for eight years.

Now, lying beside the wreckage of that plan, Bel finally let herself feel something close to fear.

Bel spent most of the night staring at the ceiling, unable to decide whether she was more frightened by the annulment itself or by the fact that Rafi had stopped looking at her as though she mattered. For nine years she had known exactly how to move him. A sigh at the right moment. A mention of Miguel's tuition. A reminder that her parents were struggling. A soft accusation that he was becoming distant. Rafi had always folded before the conversation reached its natural end.

Now there was nothing to fold.

She turned her head and studied him in the darkness. His back was toward her. He had not asked where she was going tomorrow. He had not asked whether she had spoken to Marco. He had not even asked why she had done it.

That silence frightened her more than anger would have.

Bel had told herself for years that Rafi was lucky to have her. He had been a nobody when they married, a man with a modest salary and no powerful family behind him. She had given him a respectable surname, a home filled with people, and a son to raise. In return, she had expected obedience. She had never called it exploitation because that word would have forced her to see herself clearly.

Marco had been different.

Marco had been exciting, polished, and impossible to possess openly. He knew how to make her feel desirable rather than merely respectable. When she discovered she was pregnant, the choice had seemed obvious. Marco would never publicly claim a child conceived outside the marriage arrangements his family expected. Rafi, meanwhile, loved her so completely that he had never thought to question the timing.

She had mistaken his trust for stupidity.

That mistake had lasted eight years.

The Regional Trial Court's annulment mediation room smelled like old paper and air-conditioning turned too high. Bel arrived with her lawyer at 7:58, prepared for a fight over the house in Dasmariñas, the joint savings, the car — prepared, frankly, to drag this out for months the way her lawyer had advised, since dragging things out usually meant Rafi caved first.

He was already seated when she walked in, and he didn't look up.

"Property division," Bel's lawyer began, sliding a folder across the table, "given the nine-year duration of the marriage, my client is entitled to—"

"She can have it," Rafi said. "The house, the savings account, the car. All of it."

Bel's lawyer blinked. Bel herself went very still.

"No custody claim," Rafi continued, flat and businesslike. "No child support obligation, given the DNA results already on file with this court. I want nothing except my name removed from every joint account by end of day."

Her lawyer glanced at her, visibly recalculating, clearly assuming they'd stumbled into unexpected luck. Bel said nothing, watching Rafi's face for the crack she was certain must be hiding underneath that calm — the grief, the desperation, the man who used to beg her not to work late, finally breaking in front of her one last time.

There was no crack. There was nothing at all, and that unsettled her far more than a fight would have.

She didn't know — couldn't have known — that Rafi was handing over every peso of shared property precisely because none of it mattered anymore. In ninety days, currency itself would mean nothing compared to canned goods and clean water. What mattered was making sure this annulment was finalized, clean and fast, before he touched a single centavo of what was coming — so that nothing he built next could ever legally be called hers.

Papers were signed within the hour. Nine years dissolved in less time than it took most people to eat lunch.

At the courthouse the next morning, Bel expected Rafi to be late. He had always been late when he was upset, lingering at home because he needed time to gather himself before difficult conversations. Instead, he was already seated when she entered, a neat folder placed in front of him and a glass of water untouched at his right hand.

He looked rested.

That was almost offensive.

Her lawyer leaned close and whispered that they should push for a favorable property settlement. The house, savings, vehicle, and any investment accumulated during the marriage could become points of negotiation. The lawyer spoke confidently, as though this were another ordinary dispute between spouses.

Bel listened, but her eyes remained fixed on Rafi.

He looked like a stranger who happened to know every embarrassing detail of her life.

"Property division," her lawyer began.

"She can have it."

Bel blinked.

"The house. The savings. The car."

"Rafi," she said, unable to hide her confusion.

He finally looked at her. There was no hatred in his eyes. That somehow made it worse.

"I don't want anything that belongs to the life we had," he said.

Her lawyer immediately began calculating. Bel could almost see the figures forming in his mind. He probably thought Rafi was emotional and therefore easy to pressure.

But Rafi continued before the lawyer could speak.

"There will be no future claim against me. I want my name removed from every joint account, every authorization, every financial obligation connected to your family. Today."

The lawyer hesitated. "Mr. Villaroman, given the duration of the marriage—"

"I know exactly how long I was married."

His answer was quiet.

"Nine years."

For one second Bel remembered the man who had waited outside the maternity ward, crying when Miguel was born. She remembered Rafi learning how to change diapers from an online video, burning the first batch of formula because he was too nervous to measure the water properly. She remembered him carrying a sleeping Miguel upstairs after a fever.

A tiny piece of guilt surfaced.

She crushed it immediately.

Bel walked out of that courthouse convinced she'd won.

The mediator read through the documents twice. The annulment was unusually straightforward because neither side wanted to contest the central facts once the DNA report had been submitted.

Bel signed first.

Her hand shook.

Rafi signed last.

His signature looked exactly as it always had—clean, controlled, almost painfully ordinary.

When the papers were collected, Bel waited for him to say something sentimental. Perhaps a final accusation. Perhaps a request for one more conversation.

He simply stood.

"That's it?" she asked.

Rafi looked at the closed folder.

"That's it."

"You don't even want to talk about Miguel?"

His expression changed for the first time.

"Not here."

Bel swallowed.

"He still loves you."

Rafi's jaw tightened.

"I know."

"You raised him."

"I know."

The words came out softer than she expected.

Then he looked directly at her.

"That's why you should be ashamed of what you did to both of us."

Bel felt the sentence like a slap.

Rafi walked away before she could answer.

Outside the courthouse, the afternoon sun was brutally bright. He stood on the steps for several seconds, breathing in air that felt strangely clean.

He had expected freedom to feel triumphant.

Instead, it felt like standing beside a grave after everyone else had gone home.

He had buried nine years.

And now he could finally start spending the ninety-one days he had left.