“No secrets. I simply want a divorce. I’m tired of this life.”
My father slammed his teacup onto the table so hard that tea spilled over the rim. “Angela, you explain this to me! What has Jonathan ever done to wrong you? During your confinement, he stayed up nights to take care of you. When you fell ill, he rushed you to the hospital in the middle of the night. And now you already have a child together, yet you say you’ll just leave? Can you face him? Can you face your child?”
I lifted my eyes toward Jonathan.
His bloodshot gaze brimmed with exhaustion and panic. “Dad, it’s because he’s been so good… that I have to leave.”
I ignored the confusion burning in everyone’s eyes and looked straight at Jonathan, expressionless. “Just take it as me being tired of you. Three days from now, we’ll meet at the court.”
With that, I rose, grabbed my coat, and walked out, my back pressed under the weight of silence and baffled stares.
That night, I had planned to stay at a guesthouse. But when I opened my phone to book a room, I realized my bank balance wasn’t even enough to cover one night.
Only then did it hit me. After getting married, I handed over my paycheck card and my bonus card—even the savings I had set aside before our wedding had been transferred into a joint account.
Jonathan had said, 'A family should keep money together. That way, it feels secure.'
Not long ago, when he offered me his salary card, I hadn’t taken it.
For the past year, I’d been a full-time mother. The only money I ever had in my hand was the allowance he gave me, never more than a couple of hundred dollars at most.
I once thought that was a symbol of trust. Only now do I realize I had turned myself into an appendage, surviving completely on Jonathan's support.
...
The next morning, I visited the baby supply shop I always frequented. Before my pregnancy, I worked there as a sales assistant.
Since then, nearly everything I purchased during and after my pregnancy came from that same store.
I had always gotten along well with the shop owner, Mrs. Jenkins. She’d told me more than once that if I ever wanted to come back, the job would be waiting.
I hadn’t even reached the counter when the sound of familiar voices drifted toward me. A few of my old coworkers were huddled together, talking in low tones. Their voices weren’t loud, but just enough for the words to slip through the air and find me.