Love without Credit

By the time my wife, Jade Quinn, reopened the study door, a day had passed.

She once again looked the part of an academic elite. She was wearing a Patek Philippe watch and had put on a custom blend of perfume.

As she walked past me, she glanced at me and asked, "Well? Aren't you going to work?"

I sat on the couch without looking at her.

Clinging to my last shred of hope, I pleaded in a low voice, "My grandparents are already 90 years old. They wouldn't have asked for this money had their old family home not collapsed, leaving them with no place to live."

Although I fought to suppress my bitterness, I couldn't keep my voice from trembling as I added, "You can just treat the 30 thousand dollars as a loan. I'll pay you back…"

She neither responded nor made her opinion known. She didn't even pause in the act of swapping her indoor shoes for outdoor ones.

It was as if she hadn't even heard me.

Perhaps she heard me but was just pretending she hadn't.

The living room was silent save for the pounding of my heart.

I clenched my fists and stepped into her path.

"Jade!"

She stopped but didn't look back.

"I know, but I don't want to lend them the money," she said at last.

Her unapologetic behavior reminded me of her reaction in the kitchen last night.

When I'd told her that my grandparents wanted to borrow 30 thousand dollars to repair their old family home, she frowned at me and said, "Aiden, you're their grandson, not their son. You have no obligation to cover for them."

Yet, she knew full well that my grandparents had been the ones to raise me by scrounging money from collecting and selling used bottles.

"That's still not enough reason for you to provide them aid," she argued.

At the time, she'd turned me by the shoulders and warned me icily, "This time, they claim it's to fix up their family home, but what about next time? If they ask for 30 thousand dollars this time and you give them the money, are they going to ask for 50 thousand or even 100 thousand dollars next time?

"Aiden, I'm just a university professor. How much money could I possibly have? You only make two to three thousand dollars a month working library shifts. What right do you have to shift their financial burden onto me?"

Despite her words, she'd turned around and transferred 200 thousand dollars to her own student under the guise of a donation.

That sum was enough for me to buy countless pairs of good-quality shoes and an endless number of discounted shirts. It was enough for my grandparents to fix up their family homes ten times over.

My heart had already gone numb, yet the mere thought still tore at my heart regardless.

Jade's cold words struck me like a hammer. "Aiden Shaw, I teach economics, and in economics, we make rational decisions. If I lend you 30 thousand dollars, will you be able to pay me back?

"You earn three thousand dollars a month, half of which goes toward household expenses. Another thousand dollars goes toward paying the mortgage, which leaves you with five hundred dollars. How are you going to pay me back when you barely have enough left over for food?"

She shoved me aside, straightened her skirt, and strode out the door.

"You've already held me up for ten minutes. I'm going to be late. In the future, don't waste my time on trivial matters like this."

This time, she didn't slam the door on me, but her words chilled me more than having the door shut in my face ever could.

As I gazed in the direction she'd left in, I slid down while leaning against the doorframe until I was sitting on the floor. I stayed in that position for a long while.

After I finally got up, the first thing I did was download the divorce agreement sitting in my inbox.

I'd asked one of my university seniors, a law student named Artemis Quell, to draft it up for me while I was escorting my grandparents back to the hotel last night.

I could still remember how Grandpa had tugged on the hem of my shirt and reasoned with me through teary eyes, "Aiden, she has her own issues to deal with. We'll think of something else, so please don't fight with your wife over some money…"

So, I sat in wait for an entire night, clinging to one last shred of hope, and pleaded with her one more time this morning.

In return, she'd called my heartfelt plea a "trivial matter" and refused to lend me the money.

I selected the signature column and signed my name stroke by stroke, then tapped on the send button.