Chapter Thirteen: The Letter
Jessica left.
Ernest sat alone with his coffee, trying to process what she’d told me. Could Kelly have been influenced? Absolutely. But that didn’t erase her choices. Adults were responsible for their own decisions. Even when friends gave bad advice.
Still, the conversation nagged at him.
That night, he did something he’d been avoiding. He went through old photos on his computer. Pictures from their early years together. Kelly at their wedding, her smile radiant and genuine. Kelly laughing at a joke he’d made at Thanksgiving dinner. Kelly holding his hand during a sunset hike, looking at him like he was everything.
When had that changed?
When had she stopped seeing him as a partner and started seeing him as a meal ticket?
His phone rang.
Patricia Morrison.
“She’s ready to sign. Kelly accepted the original settlement offer. No alimony. Split the assets as proposed. Her attorney sent over the signed agreement this afternoon.”
Ernest felt a strange mix of relief and hollowness.
“That’s good. When’s it final?”
“We can file with the court tomorrow. Given that you’ve been separated for over thirty days and there’s an agreement in place, the judge will likely grant the divorce within a few weeks.”
“Okay. Do it.”
“There’s one more thing. Kelly included a personal note with the settlement agreement. She asked that it be forwarded to you. I’ve scanned it and am sending it over now.”
Ernest opened the email attachment. Kelly’s familiar looping script filled the screen.
Ernest,
I’m signing your settlement because you’re right. I don’t deserve alimony. I don’t deserve anything from you except maybe your contempt.
Jessica told me she talked to you. I didn’t ask her to, but I’m glad she did. Because there’s something I need you to understand. Even if you never forgive me — I did love you. I do love you. I just lost sight of what that meant.
When Jessica told me about her divorce settlement, something broke in my brain. I started seeing our marriage as a safety net instead of a partnership. I started thinking about exit strategies instead of building a life. And by the time I realized how twisted my thinking had become, I was already meeting with attorneys and calculating numbers.
You deserve better than that. You deserved someone who valued you for who you are, not what you could provide. I’m sorry I became someone who couldn’t do that.
I hope you find someone who loves you the way you deserve to be loved. And I hope someday I figure out how to be a better person than the one you discovered I’d become.
Kelly
Ernest read the note three times.
It didn’t change anything. It didn’t erase the betrayal or the calculation or the fact that she’d stayed in their marriage as a strategy.
But it did make him sad in a way he hadn’t expected.
Because he believed she meant it.
And that made everything worse somehow — knowing that the person she’d become wasn’t who she’d wanted to be, but had become it anyway.
He closed the email and set his phone down.
