“We met about seven months ago.”
He sneered, shook his head, and fought the urge to slam his fist onto the old Formica tabletop. “Seven months?” His teeth clenched. “I’ve been supporting some other guy for seven months?”
“No.” Rachel looked at him as if he were stupid for thinking such a thing. “He’s employed.”
“But not enough to support you?”
“I don’t have a job, Bowie. What do you expect?”
He threw his hands up and scoffed at her ridiculous question. “I don’t know, Rachel. Maybe you should apply for one. That’s what most people do when they need money.”
She rolled her eyes and slid the envelope toward him. He hesitated before his calloused hand grabbed ahold of the thick packet. Every time one of these showed up in his mailbox, he had to sign in triplicate and usually send a check to his lawyer. That thought alone sent his stomach into a fit of knots. “What’s this?” he asked. It was a question he really didn’t want to know the answer to, but he hoped the contents would be the end of his marriage.
Rachel cleared her throat but said nothing. His gaze intensified on her while his fingers worked the metal clasp on the back of the package. He wished she would blurt out what it was she wanted from him to make things easier. He’d much rather hear her demands than read them in black and white because the legal mumbo jumbo made his eyes cross and his brain hurt. He was a numbers guy—measurements and area calculations. He could look at a room, tell you the size and the exact number of gallons it would take to paint. But read a legal document? Not his idea of a good time. More so, he had to ask his mother for help, which to him was embarrassing. He hated airing his dirty laundry to her.
He pulled the stacks of papers out slowly, almost fearful of what they might entail. He took in everything he could on the page. Dissolution of Marriage, Rachel Holmes—Petitioner. Bowie Holmes—Respondent. The date and place of where they were married seemed to stand out over the other words on the paper. That was, until he came to line two: Irreconcilable Differences. That’s how his marriage would end, because of differences.
“I’ve decided to forgo my request for alimony.”
Bowie glanced at his soon-to-be-ex-wife. She had a smug look on her face, and he knew why. The next husband had money. He’d learned enough from his lawyer to know that alimony stopped once she remarried. “Is that so?”
“It’s the right thing to do.”
He knew better. Rachel never cared about what was right; she only cared about herself. She had shown him as much when she’d walked out. Still, he nodded and flipped to the next page, pretending to read.
“I also withdrew my request for my share of the house.”
Bowie chuckled and set the stack of papers down on the table just in time for Peggy to bring their orders. Eggs over easy set on top of shredded hash browns with two sides of bacon and homemade wheat toast for him. Fruit and oatmeal for Rachel. She wrinkled her nose at the sight of his plate. She didn’t like grease, fat, or anything else she deemed unhealthy. He was a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy, while she was a vegetarian. Not that he had anything against vegetarians—he just preferred lettuce on his burger and not by itself. Their different lifestyles meant they’d butted heads, often. When he was hot, she was freezing to death. When he was tired, she was wide awake and begging him to watch a sappy movie, something that would surely put him to sleep. When he wanted to relax and watch football, she pushed him into driving to Seattle for retail therapy, pulling him around from store to store and whining because he wasn’t paying attention to her until he put his phone away. To most, their clashing personalities would’ve been a turnoff. Yet, despite their differences, he’d fallen in love with her, and when she’d left, it had broken him, and now he could call their differences irreconcilable.
“Thanks, Peggy. You’ve always known how to treat me.” The comment was a jab toward Rachel, who preferred takeout over a home-cooked meal.
“My pleasure, sugar.”
“You just need to sign the papers, and in ninety days we’ll be divorced,” Rachel mumbled. She dipped her spoon into the bowl of plain oatmeal but didn’t take a bite.
He pushed his plate to the side, folded his hands and rested them on top of the table, and leaned forward. Rachel refused to make eye contact with him, something that irritated him to no end. “I want to make sure I understand what I’m reading or what you’re telling me. I sign the papers today, and in three months, we’re divorced?”