Chapter 2

Seeing that I wasn't joking, Chloe tugged at her mother's sleeve. She whispered urgently, "Mom, just sign it. Isn't getting rid of Dad exactly what you've wanted all along?"

But Vivian glanced at my ashen face and, unexpectedly, her tone softened. "Ted, you know perfectly well I never actually meant to divorce you. I only wanted you to understand your place."

My place. What place did I have?

Ever since I'd moved into the Simpson household as Vivian's husband, I'd been nothing but an unpaid servant everyone ordered around.

Vivian's mother, Lisa Simpson, looked down on me. She never missed a chance to humiliate me in front of others. Meanwhile, she doted on Andy and gave him the best of everything in the house.

For Vivian's sake, I could have stomached all of that unfairness. What I never expected was her betrayal.

Not long after she'd given birth to our daughter, she'd listened to Lisa and gone to Andy's room. The night the two of them spent tangled together, Lisa had me tied up for the entire night. The next day, all Vivian offered by way of explanation was, "Ted, Andy's a widower with no wife. He's been through enough."

I couldn't accept sharing my wife with another man. Provoked past my limit, I passed out on the spot.

But the first thing Vivian said when she came to see me in the hospital was, "Ted, Andy has no one to carry on his family line. I listened to Mom, and I've given our daughter to him. We're still young. We can have another child."

I refused, flatly. Her face turned cold. "Can't you understand anything? Andy's a widower with no child to his name. He'll be lonely for the rest of his life."

Vivian truly had no heart. She never once considered how I, a father who'd just had his child taken from him, was supposed to go on living.

To keep my daughter and me from being permanently separated, I went straight from the hospital to the courthouse and sued for divorce and custody. It even made the front page of Northbridge Entertainment News. The Simpsons didn't care in the slightest.

Lisa looked at me with cold eyes. "Ted, I always thought you knew your place. I never expected you to be this foolish. You're a man who married into this family—what right do you have to fight us for custody of Chloe?"

So what place did I actually have in the Simpson household?

I took a deep breath, choked down my disgust, and pointed to the line on the divorce agreement reserved for her signature. "I'm not even fighting you for our daughter anymore. What more do you want? Just sign it."

Vivian's lips pressed into a thin line, her expression darkening, and she signed her name. "Once we're divorced, seeing Chloe again won't come so easily. Don't you dare regret this, Ted."

I looked at Chloe.

Eight years ago, she'd been born premature, small enough to fit in the palm of a hand, barely clinging to life in an incubator. The hospital had issued critical-condition notices again and again. The Simpsons had all but given up on her. I was the only one who'd begged everyone who could possibly save her, until I finally kept her alive.

So for years, in Vivian's eyes, Chloe had been my one weakness. But now, looking at the indifference on Chloe's face and the disdain in her eyes when she looked at me, something in me finally let go.

I folded up the divorce agreement. Chloe tugged excitedly at her mother's hem.

"Great, Mom! Since I don't have to go to court on my birthday, let's go find Papa Andy. We can all go to the amusement park together!"

I almost wanted to laugh. Countless times before, I'd gone to the Simpson house to take Chloe to that same amusement park, and every time she'd refused—her stomach hurt, or the weather wasn't good, or something. She'd even snapped at me once, "Dad, you're a grown man. Can't you act your age instead of always wanting to go to some amusement park?"

Swallowing down the bitterness rising in my throat, I checked the time and said, "The park stops letting people in soon. You'll need to hurry if you want to make it."

Chloe bristled like a cat with its tail stepped on, her eyes flaring red with anger. "You don't need to worry about it. Since you and Mom are divorced, you're not my dad anymore!"

I thought she was right.

"Fine. I won't say another word."

I picked up the documents and walked out ahead of them. "Have fun."