The Lived in son-in-law Wants Divorce

3

"That doesn't even make sense," Ethan called after her, following into the hallway. "If I were plotting against your precious doctor, why would I stand here and tell you about it myself? Use your head for once, Sophia, not just your temper."

She spun around at the front door, coat already half on her shoulders. "Don't lecture me in my own house."

"It's my house too. For now."

"Not for long, apparently, since you're so eager to crawl out of it." Her eyes went hard as glass. "You disgust me sometimes, Ethan. Truly."

The word landed harder than he expected, even now, even reborn with a heart he'd told himself was armored shut. He said nothing while she yanked the door open and walked out into the night, and he did not chase after her. He climbed the stairs alone instead, each step heavier than the last, and let himself feel the sting for exactly one minute before he shut it away for good.

His phone rang before he'd even reached the top step. Richard Morgan's name flashed on the screen.

"Ethan," his father in law barked without any greeting at all, "have you and Sophia scheduled the fertility clinic yet? My doctor gave you both a strict calendar. This isn't something you get to keep putting off."

"We haven't scheduled anything," Ethan said.

"Of course you haven't." Richard's voice dripped with contempt thick as tar. "I don't know what's wrong with you, boy. Two years married and not a single grandchild to show for it. My daughter's tests came back perfectly clean. Perfectly. So tell me, is the problem sitting somewhere between your legs, or are you just too soft and useless to get the job done, like some old dog that can't get up anymore?"

Something old finally cracked loose in Ethan's chest, years of swallowed insults rising up all at once.

"Maybe the problem isn't me at all," Ethan said, voice suddenly sharp as a blade. "Maybe you should ask your perfectly clean daughter why nothing's happened in two years. And if you still don't believe me, old man, I'll happily father a child with someone else and bring the baby straight to your doorstep. Let's see whose blood runs through it."

The silence on the other end stretched long enough that Ethan almost laughed out loud.

"You will not speak to me that way," Richard finally sputtered, but the fire had gone clean out of his voice, leaving only a wheeze behind it.

"Goodnight, Richard." Ethan hung up first.

He stood there afterward with the phone still warm against his palm, breathing slowly, feeling something unfamiliar settle over his shoulders. Relief, maybe. Or simply the quiet that comes after finally putting down a weight he had carried far too long.

The house stayed empty for the rest of the night, exactly as he expected it would. He made himself a real dinner this time, rice and vegetables and a piece of chicken cooked properly, and ate it sitting at the table like a man with somewhere important to be tomorrow. Afterward he packed a bag, folding his clothes with more care than he'd given anything in years, and checked into a hotel three blocks from downtown.

Tomorrow mattered. Tomorrow he had somewhere else to be, someone else to save, and he could not afford to fail this time.

His phone woke him just past seven the next morning, Sophia's name lighting up the screen along with a fury he could practically feel through the glass.

"What did you say to my father?" she demanded the second he answered. "He called me in tears, Ethan. Actual tears. What is wrong with you?"

"I told him the truth," Ethan said, sitting up against the hotel headboard. "He can cry about it if he wants to."

"Is this some kind of reverse psychology?" Her voice turned pure venom. "Insult my whole family so I come chasing after you? Is that your little plan?"

"There's no plan," Ethan said. "I don't want you chasing me, Sophia. I want the exact opposite."

A pause, then her voice shifted, businesslike and cold as a closed door. "There was no breakfast waiting for me this morning. I had to leave the house without eating anything."

Ethan almost laughed out loud at that. In his old life he had cooked her breakfast every single morning for two straight years, rising before dawn just to have something warm ready for her, and it bought him nothing but a stomach tumor and a lonely death in a room she never once visited. She had never thanked him. She had simply expected it, the way one expects the sun to rise without gratitude.

"Check the table on the second floor," he said instead. "You'll find something there. Have a good morning, Sophia."

He hung up and pictured it exactly as it happened, her heels clicking up the stairs, her hand pausing over the folded papers waiting there, her eyes scanning the pre signed divorce agreement he'd left behind before he ever walked out of the house.

His phone rang again less than three minutes later. He let it ring twice before answering, savoring the stunned quiet on the other end before the storm broke loose.

"What is this," Sophia finally said, her voice shaking with something close to disbelief.

"Exactly what it looks like," Ethan said calmly. "I'm not asking for one cent of your money, Sophia. Not the house, not the car, not one dollar of your family's fortune. I just want out. I want to walk away from this marriage completely and never see your face again."