Chapter 2

The next week, the air conditioning unit on the second floor started making a rattling noise. Olivia complained about it for two days straight.

"Can' t you just fix it, Ethan? I have a huge presentation on Friday, and I can' t sleep with that racket."

"I' ll take a look at it," I said.

Calling a professional would have been easy, but it would have also led to another lecture from Olivia about the budget, about how my lack of an income meant we had to be careful, even though she made more money than we could ever spend. So I did what I always did. I got out the ladder and the toolbox.

I was on the top step, trying to tighten a loose panel on the exterior unit, when my foot slipped. The old wooden ladder wobbled violently. For a split second, I saw the clear blue sky, and then the world was a blur of green grass and a flash of intense pain.

I landed hard on my left arm. A sickening crack echoed in the quiet afternoon. I lay on the lawn, gasping, a white-hot agony shooting from my wrist all the way up to my shoulder. My arm was bent at an angle that was completely wrong.

It took me a few minutes to get my breath back. I managed to sit up, cradling my broken arm. The pain was dizzying. I fumbled for my phone with my good hand and called Olivia.

She answered on the third ring, her voice clipped and busy. "Ethan, what is it? I' m in the middle of a meeting."

"I fell," I gasped out. "The ladder… I think my arm is broken."

There was a pause. I heard the muffled sound of her talking to someone else. "I have to take this." Then, back to me, her voice was full of irritation, not concern. "Are you serious? Today? I' m about to close a seven-figure deal, Ethan. Is it really that bad?"

"It' s bad, Olivia. It' s… it' s bent."

A heavy sigh. "Fine. I' ll leave. This is going to look great, me walking out of the most important meeting of the quarter. Just… stay there. I' ll call an ambulance."

She hung up. She didn' t ask if I was okay. She didn' t say she was worried. Her first thought was how my injury would inconvenience her.

The ambulance came, and then the hospital, and then a cast. By the time Olivia arrived, I was sitting in a discharge wheelchair, a prescription for painkillers in my lap.

She stood over me, her arms crossed, her face a mask of controlled fury. "Well? They said it' s a clean break. You' ll live. Do you have any idea what I had to sacrifice to leave that meeting?"

"I didn' t do it on purpose, Olivia."

"It doesn' t matter," she snapped. "Now what are we going to do? The kids need to be picked up from soccer. The house is a mess. I have to go back to the office to smooth things over. You' ve created a huge problem."

She didn' t help me into the car. She just held the door open impatiently. The kids were in the back seat, headphones on, eyes glued to their tablets. They barely glanced at my bright white cast.

"Dad broke his arm," Olivia told them, her tone making it sound like an accusation.

Max didn' t look up. "Is Uncle Liam coming over for dinner?"

That was it. That was the moment clarity cut through the pain and the years of denial. They didn' t care. Not my wife, not my children. My pain was an annoyance. My presence was a service. And that service had just been interrupted.

I looked at my wife' s angry profile as she drove, at the back of my children' s heads. I was completely and utterly alone in this family. They weren't my family. They were just people I lived with. People who used me.

I thought about my art, the canvases gathering dust in the attic. I thought about the ambitious young man I used to be, the man who dreamed of galleries and exhibitions, not of unclogging drains and fixing broken appliances. I had given all of that up for this. For them. For nothing.

The pain in my arm was a dull throb. But the pain in my chest was sharp and final.

When we got home, Olivia was already on the phone, rescheduling her meetings, her voice sweet and apologetic to her colleagues.

I walked past her and went upstairs to our bedroom. I looked at our wedding photo on the nightstand. Two smiling strangers.

I made a decision. It wasn't loud or dramatic. It was quiet, solid, and absolute. It settled over me like a calm I hadn' t felt in a decade.

I was done.

Later that evening, after Olivia had ordered takeout and complained about the cost, after the kids had eaten and disappeared back into their digital worlds, I found her in the living room.

She was on her laptop, her face illuminated by the screen.

"Olivia," I said.

She didn' t look up. "What now, Ethan? Did you need help opening your pill bottle?"

"I want a divorce."

Her fingers stopped typing. She slowly raised her head, her eyes narrowing. She looked at me not with sadness or shock, but with pure, undiluted annoyance.

"Don' t be ridiculous," she said, as if I had just suggested painting the house purple. "We don' t have time for a divorce."