PART 1: THE DIVORCE
The morning after Robert’s funeral, the woman he had married only weeks after divorcing me appeared on my porch holding his blue tie.
I recognized the tie before I truly saw her face. I had given it to Robert on our thirty-fifth anniversary. He wore it when he signed our divorce papers and again when he married Claire.
“Greta,” she said, “Robert made me promise not to tell you the truth until after he died.”
I gripped the door. “You had four months with my husband. Whatever truth you shared can remain buried with him.”
I began to close it.
“He didn’t leave you because he loved me.”
That stopped me.
Four months earlier, Robert and I had returned from the hospital after learning his cancer had spread. It was stage four. At home, I arranged his medicine beside the sink, as I had handled countless small details throughout our thirty-nine-year marriage.
“We’ll face this together,” I told him.
Robert pulled away.
“I don’t want you beside me, Greta.”
At first, I thought fear was speaking. Then he demanded a divorce and said he wanted to spend his remaining time with Claire, a coworker I barely knew.
When our children, Hanna and Steven, arrived, Robert told them I was abandoning him.
I called it a lie, but he lowered his head and let them believe it. Steven asked him directly whether he had requested the divorce.
Robert said nothing.
His silence should have exposed him. Instead, my children decided I was cruel enough to leave their dying father.
Three weeks later, I signed the papers.
Robert gave me the house, most of our savings, and part of his business holdings. The adviser called the settlement unusually generous.
“Why are you giving me nearly everything?”
“You’ll need it more than I will.”
He wore the blue tie that day.
Outside, Hanna and Steven told me Claire would care for him and that they planned to marry in three weeks.
“I was willing to stay,” I said.
Hanna looked at me coldly. “Then you should have acted like it.”
For the next four months, my children barely spoke to me. I learned of Robert’s death from a midnight message.
The next day, Hanna told me I was not welcome at the funeral.
“He was my husband for thirty-nine years.”
“He stopped being your husband.”
I spent the funeral alone.
The following morning, Claire arrived with the tie and three documents.
