Xavier
i’m surprised to find Melanie sitting at the kitchen island when I come downstairs. I’ve worked out, showered, and done a couple of hours of work at my desk but it’s still only ten in the morning. Melanie almost never gets up before noon.
“Good morning,” I say civilly. “Coffee?”
“Please.” She widens her eyes emphatically. “I’ve missed good coffee.”
I don’t take the bait. I don’t ask more about her life in New Mexico or why she didn’t have good coffee, I don’t even return her smile. I just load up the Nespresso and pour two cups.
“Hazel and I will be out today,” I tell her as I pass her a mug, and I don’t miss how her eyes flash up at me with sudden interest. “We’re going to Sarah Kearns’ wedding.”
“Together?”
The way she asks the question takes me by surprise, as if there’s something unusual about it. “I don’t have a date. Thought it might be fun for Hazel.”
“Hm.” She takes a sip of her coffee, both hands wrapped around the mug. The oversize white dress shirt she’s wearing slips off of one shoulder. For a second, despite myself, I can’t help but notice she looks cute…but then I realize it’s my shirt she’s wearing.
I tamp down a surge of irritation. “I’d prefer it if you didn’t wear any of my clothes while you’re here.”
She widens her eyes in mock confusion and then looks down at the shirt. “Oh, this? You used to love when I wore your shirts!”
“Not anymore, Melanie. I’m trying to divorce you, remember?” It comes out with an unexpected bite, but I don’t falter, holding her gaze.
“Xavi,” she says with exasperation, as if I’m the one who’s being difficult. “Listen. We need to sort this out. I need money. If you restart the monthly payments and give me the house back, I can live there while you take the space that you need to heal. But I don’t think it makes any sense to get divorced. I’ve made some mistakes, yes, but everyone makes mistakes. It takes two people to ruin a marriage, you know!”
“I’ve never cheated,” I point out, with just a flicker of doubt. Even though Melanie and I aren’t technically divorced, it certainly never felt like cheating with the women I hooked up with after we separated. But with Hazel…I’m not sure what that counts as.
Her smile falls, and her eyes turn cold. “For the millionth time, I’m sorry! You need to learn to stop dwelling in the past.”
“The house sold, Melanie. And I’m not your piggy bank anymore. The only way you’ll get money from me is if you sign the divorce papers. I paid for you to have a good lawyer, and he fought for that amount of spousal support. It’s more than the monthly e-transfers. I don’t understand your resistance.”
Her eyes soften, and her mouth twitches, and she blinks a couple of times before looking up at me. “Because I don’t want to give up on us, babe. I love you.”
It’s a testament to the damage that’s been wrought in this relationship that I don’t trust her answer. Instead of pacifying me, her confession of love makes me suspicious and puts me on guard. Melanie has manipulated me so many times over the course of our history that I no longer trust anything she says. So instead of meeting her doe eyes with tenderness of my own, I lean forward with a shrewd look. “Why don’t you want to get divorced?”
She blows out an irritable breath, and when she speaks her voice has a hard edge. “Xavier, I’m thirty-seven years old. What am I going to do if I’m divorced? Even your alimony won’t keep me in…” she waves her hand, “a house like this. It won’t pay for the vacations we used to take, or the dinners we used to have.”
“It should come pretty close,” I say tersely. I’ve agreed to share a significant portion of my family trust with Melanie for the rest of her life. She’ll want for nothing.
“But it’s not the same!’ She reaches for my hands, covering them both with hers in a supplicating manner. “At our age, it’s better to be married, settled down. We have a good thing, honey. You just have to think bigger. Your thinking is always so small, Xavi, if you could just be more open-minded-”
“What is your point, Melanie?”