THE DIVORCE

The envelope sat unopened on Alessia's lap the whole drive home.

She hadn't been able to open it in the specialist's office. She couldn't open it now either. The doctor's voice kept circling back to her — *we'd like to run further tests, Mrs. Sinclair, given what we're seeing* — careful words. Careful enough to be terrifying.

Five years of trying. Five years of appointments and disappointments folded into the shape of a marriage no one outside it would have guessed the cost of. She had told herself, driving in, that whatever this was couldn't be worse than another negative test.

She wasn't sure that was true anymore.

She wanted, more than anything, to put the envelope in Nikolia's hands and not be the only one holding it.

Marta met her at the door and told her, gently, that Mr. Sinclair was waiting in his office.

Not the bedroom. Not anywhere they had ever sat together to talk about anything that mattered.

Alessia's stomach tightened before she'd even opened the door.

Nikolia was standing by the window when she stepped inside, a glass of something amber caught in his hand, untouched. He didn't turn immediately, and in the silence before he did, Alessia let herself hope, one last foolish time, that whatever this was could still be repaired by the two of them in a room together.

Then he turned, and his face told her nothing at all. That was what frightened her first — not anger, not the exhaustion she'd grown used to reading in him over the last few months, but a stillness so complete it felt like looking at a stranger wearing her husband's face.

"You're late," he said. Not a question. Not concern.

"I had an appointment." She set her bag down slowly, the envelope still pressed against her side, hidden. "Nikolia, something happened today. I need to tell you—"

"Sit down."

"I don't want to sit down. I want you to look at me."

He didn't. He crossed to the desk instead, and it was only then that she saw the folder waiting there, squared perfectly at the edge like everything else in this house that he controlled down to the inch. He opened it and turned it toward her without a word.

Alessia looked down.

DIVORCE AGREEMENT.

For a moment the words didn't organize themselves into meaning. She read them again, certain she'd misunderstood.

The room tilted slightly. A low ringing started in her ears, the same lightheadedness that had sent her to the doctor in the first place, and she gripped the edge of the desk to steady herself, hoping he wouldn't notice.

"Is this a joke?" Her voice came out smaller than she wanted it to.

"Sign them."

"Nikolia—"

"Sign them, Alessia."

She laughed, once, disbelieving, and the sound cracked in the middle. "Five years. Five years of trying for a child, of building this — this *life* — and you're going to stand there and tell me to sign papers like I'm approving a contract?"

"It's exactly like that." His voice didn't rise. That was almost worse than if it had. "It's over. I need you to accept that tonight."

"Why?" She stepped closer, searching his face for any crack in it, any sign that the man underneath this coldness was still fighting to get out. "Tell me why. You owe me that much."

"Is there someone else?" The question came out small, but she needed to know what kind of ending this was before she let herself feel anything about it.

"No."

That single word gave her something to hold onto, and she hated herself for how quickly she reached for it.

"Then why are you doing this?"

Nikolia looked at her for a long moment. When he finally spoke, his voice was level, almost gentle in a way that made it worse.

"Because I don't want you anymore."

The words didn't just land. They emptied her out.

"After five years?" she said, when she could speak again.

His jaw tightened — the only crack she saw in him all night, gone as fast as it appeared. "Five years was long enough."

And there it was. She understood, all at once, exactly what he meant by that, and something in her chest folded in on itself. Five years of appointments. Five years of hope rebuilt after every disappointment, each time a little smaller than the last.

"Is this because I couldn't give you a child?"

She watched him. Watched for the denial, the flicker of guilt, anything that would tell her she was wrong.

He said nothing.

He let her believe it.

"Do you love me?" she asked instead, quieter now, because she needed one true thing out of this room even if it broke her. "Just tell me that much. After everything, you can give me that."

The silence stretched long enough that she thought he wouldn't answer at all. When he finally spoke, his voice had gone flat, stripped of anything she recognized.

"It doesn't matter anymore."

Alessia stood very still. The room hadn't stopped tilting.

She thought of every version of tonight she'd imagined on the drive home. Him taking her hand. Him saying *we'll face it together.* None of those versions had included this room, this desk, this man who wouldn't look at her like he loved her even when she'd asked him to lie.

She thought about fighting harder. About the year his father nearly broke them. About the nights they'd sat up together after another failed round. About every promise he'd made her when promises still meant something. But looking at his face, she understood, with a terrible settling clarity, that none of it would change what was already decided. He hadn't come into this room to discuss anything with her. He'd come to end something he had already ended, somewhere else, without her.

She picked up the pen.

Her hand didn't shake as much as she expected. Maybe grief steadied you, once it stopped pretending it might be avoided.

She signed.

She set the pen down, gathered her bag, and turned toward the door — and only then remembered the envelope still pressed against her side, warm now from being held too long. She stopped, and for one unguarded second she let herself imagine telling him anyway. Let herself imagine his face if she set it on the desk beside the papers he'd just watched her sign.

She placed it there instead, careful, deliberate.

"There was something I wanted to tell you tonight," she said quietly, not quite trusting her voice to hold steady through more than that.

Nikolia's gaze dropped to the envelope. For one instant — just one — something shifted in his expression, something that looked almost like fear.

It wasn't enough. It was five years and one signature too late.

Alessia reached down and picked the envelope back up.

"Never mind," she said, and walked out of the office, out of the marriage, into whatever came next — carrying the one truth he would never get to hear from her, not tonight.