All Chapters of Divorce Suits Me Better: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

49 Chapters

CHAPTER 1 The Dying Wish

(Sabrina’s POV)“Congratulations, Mrs. Cooper. You’re one month pregnant.”My fingertips landed on my stomach before I told them to. The doctor kept talking, but I was already three streets ahead. Already pricing the crib. Already picking the name.Pregnant.For three years I had been Nate Cooper’s wife in name only. One night, a month ago, on our anniversary, he had come home drunk and reeking of someone else’s perfume and whispered another woman’s name into my hair until the sun came up.The next morning he left me a note on the kitchen counter.Sorry. It was a mistake. Don’t read into it.I had ironed his shirts that day anyway.I drove home with the receipt for prenatal vitamins folded against my wedding ring. I stopped at the market.Salmon, because Nate pretended not to like it but always finished his plate. Lemons. The cabernet from our wedding night. A small white candle, because three years ago I had promised myself I would light one on our first real anniversary—and tonight,

CHAPTER 2 Already Done

(Sabrina’s POV)I didn’t remember climbing the stairs.I remembered the ultrasound in my fist. I remembered my own heartbeat in my ears. I remembered thinking: he already did it. He already did it. He already did it, as I opened the door.Nate looked up from the desk. His hand was on a fresh glass of whisky.He saw the ultrasound in my fist. He did not even flinch.“So you found it,” he said.That was all.So you found it.Three years of marriage, and that was all he had to say.“Six weeks,” I whispered. “Six weeks, Nate! You sat across from me at breakfast. You ate the food I cooked. You let me iron your shirts. You let me call your grandmother on Sundays and lie to her about how happy we were. And the whole time—”“It’s done, Sabrina.” He closed his laptop. “So sit down.”“I will not sit down!” He shot up an eyebrow. “You were never going to ask me. You came home tonight and pretended to ask me, and the whole time—”“It’s already done.” He stood up. He looked tired, not sorry. “Aski

CHAPTER 3 Nowhere To Go

(Sabrina’s POV)I picked up Nate’s pen. The pen I had bought him for our first anniversary, engraved with his initials on the side. He had never used it. The barrel was cold.I signed.I clicked the pen shut and laid it down across the form, right over the word consent.My hand did not shake. I did not cry.“There. Done.”Nate’s mouth opened. He looked, for one flicker of a second, shaken. Like he had expected tears. Like he had prepared himself for begging. Not this.“Sabrina—”“Don’t.”I walked past Alexis. I walked past my husband. I walked into the bedroom that had been mine for three years and turned the lock with both hands.For about ten seconds, I felt strong.For about ten seconds I told myself: I’ll call a lawyer. I’ll file for divorce myself. I’ll take whatever scraps the court gives me and I’ll get out.Then the ten seconds ran out.I wanted a divorce more than I had ever wanted anything, but wanting and affording are two different languages.I had nowhere to go.Aunt Nanc

CHAPTER 4 Another Man’s Name

(Nate’s POV)The doctors finished talking but I didn’t move.My grandmother was on a ventilator. She might wake up. She might not. The smoke had done what smoke does. Every hour she stayed under was an hour she might not come back from.That was what the resident said. The resident was twenty-eight years old and trying not to cry.I said, “Thank you.” That was what you said.I walked back to the waiting room.Alexis was on her phone, half-folded into a green plastic chair. She had been there for the consultation. She had wept very prettily for the resident, who had patted her shoulder. Now she was on the phone with—who knew. A friend, maybe, or her trainer. Possibly one of her brothers.My wife had set fire to a curtain in a room with my grandmother sleeping in it.That was the sentence I kept turning over. It would not soften.Three years I had let Sabrina live in my house. Three years I had paid for her uncle’s hospital, her aunt’s rent, the prescription she filled monthly without t

CHAPTER 5 The Brother

(Sabrina’s POV)I woke up because there was someone in the room.Not in the room—in the next room. Through the door I could hear the soft give of a couch and the slow constant noise of someone breathing. I tried to sit up, but my chest hurt. My throat felt as if I had swallowed gravel.My hand went to my stomach.Still there. Still flat. Still a secret.I breathed out.A suite with high ceiling and cream curtains, and a vase of white peonies on the dresser I could smell from the bed.My peony.I had told Aunt Nancy once, two summers ago, that I wished I could have peonies in the kitchen. Aunt Nancy did not have the money for white peonies and a suite like this.Someone else had paid for these.Suddenly, I remembered. That deep voice from the hospital bed. I’d thought it was a dream.Sister. My name is Eric Atwood. I have been looking for you for a very long time.I sat up so fast my vision went black.When it cleared, I was looking at a man standing in the doorway between the rooms.H

CHAPTER 6 The House Fills

(Sabrina’s POV)The room was silent since I had said that name.Eric had not moved since I said it. Aunt Nancy’s hand had gone tighter around mine, but her eyes were on Eric, and Eric’s eyes were on the carpet at the foot of the bed.“Alexis Atwood,” I rasped again, my throat scraping on the second syllable. “You know her, don’t you?”“Sweetheart,” Aunt Nancy said gently, her thumb stroking the back of my bandaged hand.“You should drink,” Eric said suddenly, gesturing to the water glass. “Aunt Nancy, would you—”“Of course,” Aunt Nancy said briskly, already moving, fussing the glass into my good hand and tilting it carefully toward my mouth.I drank. My eyes did not leave Eric. He had crossed to the window with his back half-turned, rolling down a sleeve cuff. I pulled my hand a half-inch out of Aunt Nancy’s, and watched her not quite let it go.“She is not our sister,” Eric said finally. “You don’t need to worry about her.”I wanted to press, but before I could ask another question,

CHAPTER 7 That Bitch

(Sabrina’s POV)I did not knock.My hand was on the door before I had a word ready. Through it I had heard the name and the name was still ringing, and I was not going to lie in that bed for one more minute with the name on the other side of a wall.I turned the handle and walked in.Five heads came up around the dining table.It was not the look of men caught at something. It was the look of men startled out of a half-eaten breakfast. Charlie still had a piece of toast in his hand. Tyler had a pen behind his ear. Eric was on his feet first.“You should be in bed.”“Who is Alexis Atwood to you?”The brothers looked at each other. There was no secrecy in the look. They were puzzled I was asking.“Uncle Richard’s situation…she needs to know,” Charlie said carefully, around the toast.I sat down. My legs did it without consulting me.Eric pulled out the chair beside mine and turned it to face me. He waited a beat before he spoke.“Our father had a younger brother. Richard. He died eight

CHAPTER 8 Your Name

(Sabrina’s POV)Charlie made a sound at the back of his throat that was not a word. He turned away from the table, walking the length of the room, and pressed the heels of both hands into his eyes.Tyler had not moved. His pen was on the table beside his coffee cup. He looked at the pen for a long time. Then he picked it up and laid it down in a different place.Adrian was on his feet without my having seen him stand. He came around the table and crouched beside my chair and took my bandaged hand in both of his.He did not say anything.His eyes were wet.Eric had stayed in the chair beside mine. He put both elbows on the table and his face in his hands.“I am so sorry.”His voice was muffled by his palms.“Eric—”“No.” He lifted his head. His eyes were red. “No, I have to say this. Sabrina, we let her have your name, and we didn’t find you sooner.”I could not speak.Felix was on his feet too. He had been holding the cat. He set the cat down on his chair and his hands closed into fis

CHAPTER 9 A Mystery Woman

(Nate’s POV)I did not recognize my own house.There was music coming from the morning room. Two women I had never seen were on the back patio with their feet up on my furniture. A florist’s arrangement the size of a small dog was on the foyer table. The card was signed by a name I did not know.Alexis came around the corner in a silk robe. She was on her phone. She kissed my cheek without looking up.“My stylist will be here all week, baby. Her husband too. And the wellness coach.” She turned the phone toward the patio. “They keep me calm. The baby needs me calm.”I looked at her stomach. It was barely a stomach. I looked at the line of empty wine bottles on the counter beyond her. She is pregnant. Why are there wine bottles?I went up to my study and shut the door.My assistant, Reed, was on the line within ten minutes.“Sir, I have called every hospital in the state. I have even notified the police, but they refuse to report her as missing. Every hotel and every hospital she might

CHAPTER 10 I Knew

(Sabrina’s POV)We had been at the manor for a week. Eric had moved us up from the Carlisle on Saturday morning because, he said, hotels were for people who didn’t have homes, and we had a home now.The knock came before sunrise.For a second I thought it was the cat (who I’d named Luna) at the door, doing the polite paw she sometimes did when she’d convinced herself it was breakfast.Then it came again—knuckles this time, very soft—and I knew it was a person.I opened the door in my pajamas and Adrian was standing in the hallway holding a small orange bottle.He had not slept. His shirt was buttoned wrong. He looked at me, opened his mouth, and his eyes filled.“Adrian—”“I knew.” The bottle stayed clamped in his fist. “I knew since the night we discharged you. You were asleep and I was taking care of you, and…I’m so sorry, Sabrina. I should have told you…”“Come inside, come on—”“I had no right to know first.” He let me pull him through the doorway, but barely. His feet were doing

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