บททั้งหมดของ Sixty Days To Leave You : บทที่ 1 - บทที่ 10

“I’ve filed for divorce,” Elliot said. “The papers will arrive by Friday.” He didn’t look up from his phone. Sera Calloway stood at the kitchen counter, her hands still wrapped around the mug she had just poured for him. The coffee was still steaming. She had woken up early to make it, the way he liked it. Two sugars. No cream. She set it down slowly.“Elliot.” He finally looked at her then. His expression was calm. Unbothered. The face of a man who had already made peace with a decision long before the other person in the room even knew there was one to make. “It’s the right thing,” he said. “For both of us.” She almost laughed.Sera had known something was wrong for months. The late night that stretched into early mornings. The phone calls he took in the other room, voice dropped to a murmur she was never meant to hear. The way he had stopped looking at her. Not with anger, not with coldness, but with something far worse.Indifference.She had told herself it was work. That i

It would be dishonest to say Sera was fine.She wasn’t.She had spent the night on the edge of the bed she had shared with Elliot for four years, staring at the wall across from her. She hadn’t cried. She had simply sat there, turning that phone over and over in her mind like a stone she couldn’t put down. Are you my daddy’s wife?Five words. A child’s voice. Soft and concerning and completely innocent of the damage it had caused.Sera pressed her palm flat against her chest, as if that could hold the ache in place.She had no one to call. No mother to dial at midnight. No Sister to come over and make tea and sit beside her without needing to say anything.She was alone in this house and the way she had always been alone in this house. Completely, quietly, invisible alone.But she had made a decision.Sixty days.She had asked for sixty days and she would not waste a single one of them drowning. She would use everyone. She would leave this marriage the way she had lived inside it. Wi

“I think the navy one suits you better.”Elliot paused in front of the mirror, one tie in each hand.Sera stood a few feet behind him, arms folded loosely, head tilted slightly. She had not planned to say anything. She had just been passing the doorway when she noticed him standing there, taking too long, the way he always did when he had an early meeting and was already running behind.Old habits.She knew his wardrobe better than she knew her own.“The grey washes you out a little in indoor lighting,” she added quietly. “The navy photographs better too. In case there are photos at the dinner.”He looked at her through the mirror for a moment.Then he set down the grey tie and picked up the navy one.He didn’t say thank you. She didn’t expect him to. But he used it, and that was enough.She turned to leave.“Sera.”She stopped.“The lawyer,” he said. His voice was even. Careful. “Dr. Cole. She called my office yesterday.”Sera turned slowly. “I know.”“She said she had information re

“I need you both to understand something before I begin.”Dr. Adaeze Cole sat across from them at a small private table in the back of a law firm conference room that smelled like old wood and cold coffee. She was exactly what her voice had promised over the phone. Fifties. Steady. The kind of woman who had delivered devastating news so many times that she had learned to do it without flinching. She folded her hands on top of a closed manila folder and looked at them both carefully.“What I am about to share cannot be undisclosed. Once you hear it, it changes everything. For both of you.” Her eyes moved to Sera first. Then to Elliot. “I need to know you are ready.”Sera had not slept.She had lain in the dark staring at the ceiling listening to the house settle around her and thinking about her mother. About the accident that was not supposed to make sense and somehow everyone had accepted anyway. About the way Margaret Voss had looked at her that first year of the marriage. Not with

“You look well, Elliot.”Margaret Voss was seated at the head of the dining table when he walked in. Back straight. Hands folded. A cup of tea in front of her that she had not touched. She was dressed like she was expecting company she wanted to impress, which told him she had used the time between his call and his arrival to prepare herself.He had expected that.He pulled out the chair directly across from her and sat down without greeting her back.Her eyes moved over his face with the practiced calm of a woman who had been reading rooms since before he was born. Whatever she found there made her reach for her tea.“Where is Rosa?” he asked.“I gave her the afternoon off.”“Convenient.”“Elliot.” She set her cup down. “Whatever you think you know—”“Dr. Adaeze Cole,” he said.The name landed. He watched it land. The smallest tightening around his mother’s eyes. The slight adjustment of her posture. If he had not been looking for it he would have missed it. He had spent his entire l