Chapter 8
The divorce was finalized in spring.
I wore a blue dress to court.
Not because it mattered.
Because Evelyn had once told me blue made me look common.
I had never worn it again.
That day, I wore it like armor.
Daniel arrived alone.
No mother.
No lawyer standing over him.
He looked tired but cleaner somehow.
Like fear had been washed from his face, leaving grief behind.
The judge reviewed everything.
Six-month marriage.
Irreconcilable differences.
Financial settlement.
Protective order.
Separate residences.
Then the gavel came down.
Done.
I expected to cry.
I didn’t.
Outside the courtroom, Daniel stopped beside me.
“Are you okay?”
I looked at the hallway.
At people rushing past with their own endings in folders.
“Yes.”
He smiled sadly.
“I’m glad.”
I believed that too.
Then Evelyn’s attorney approached.
He carried a sealed envelope.
“For you,” he said to Daniel.
Daniel did not take it.
“What is it?”
“A letter from your mother.”
His face tightened.
“No.”
The attorney blinked.
“She asked that you—”
“No.”
Daniel looked at me.
Then back at him.
“I spent my life accepting things from her because she demanded it. Tell her I declined.”
The attorney flushed and walked away.
Daniel exhaled shakily.
“That felt strange.”
“Freedom usually does at first.”
He nodded.
Then he held out his hand.
Not to take mine.
To say goodbye.
I shook it.
A strange ending.
Civil.
Painful.
Clean.
“Goodbye, Daniel.”
May you like
“Goodbye, Anna.”
That was the first time my name sounded like mine when he said it.
