You're asking me to stay married because your sister is pregnant? You don't understand what she's doing for us. I understand perfectly. Gregory stepped forward. She's giving us a family and I'm supposed to give you my wife.
Gregory's expression hardened. That's not fair. No, what's not fair is expecting me to pretend none of this happened. Clare started crying. Anna loves you.
I looked toward my wife. Anna was standing behind them, silent. Then she should have remembered that before she got on that plane. Nobody answered. I walked past them and went upstairs.
That evening, Robert called. The divorce petition is ready. I'll send it over. I sat at my desk. All right.
A short while later, I received the paperwork. I reviewed it, signed it, and sent it back to him. Not because I hated Anna, not because I wanted to punish her. I signed it because she had made a decision that she believed I would eventually forgive. She was about to learn that I wasn't waiting for her to come back.
I was already moving on. The divorce process moved faster than Anna expected. She had believed I would cool down, that I would see her pregnant and change my mind. For the first few weeks, she kept trying. She cooked dinner.
She left coffee beside my desk in the morning. She asked whether I wanted to watch television with her. I didn't treat her badly, but I stopped pretending we were still a couple. One evening, she stood in the kitchen while I was putting away groceries. How long are you going to keep doing this?
Doing what? Acting like I'm a stranger. I closed the cabinet. You made me a stranger when you made that decision without me. Her face tightened.
I'm still your wife legally for now. She looked down. That's all I am to you right now? Yes. She walked away.
A few days later, Gregory called me. I need to talk to you. I don't think there's anything left to discuss. There is, he sounded irritated. Anna's medical expenses are increasing.
I waited. Clare and I are covering what we agreed to cover. Good. But there are additional costs. I immediately understood where this was going.
I'm not paying them. You're her husband. Not for much longer. There was silence. You're really going to abandon her while she's pregnant?
She's not carrying my child. She's carrying our child. I corrected him. She's carrying your child. He hung up.
That conversation changed something for me. Until then, I had been focused on ending my marriage. Now, I realized they were beginning to see me as a financial problem they needed to solve. So, I made sure there would be no confusion. Robert reviewed every account and agreement connected to the house.
The house had been purchased before my marriage with money I had already saved, but Anna had contributed to expenses during our marriage. Robert explained exactly what could and couldn't be considered marital property. I followed his advice. Nothing more, nothing less. I wasn't interested in taking something that wasn't mine.
I wanted everything documented properly. Meanwhile, Anna's pregnancy became more difficult. She started having severe back pain and needed frequent appointments. I drove her to one of them, not because I had forgiven her, but because whatever I thought about her choices, I wasn't going to leave someone in pain on the side of the road. After the appointment, we sat in the parking lot.