The Thirty-Eighth Divorce's End

Today is my fifth wedding anniversary. It's also the day my husband, Ethan, asked me for a divorce for the 38th time.

He does this for Ilene, his childhood friend. The woman who crashed her car on our wedding day, leaving her unable to have children. Ever since, he's been repaying a debt of guilt, and I've been the price.

For five years, I endured the cycle of divorce and remarriage. But this time was different. Ilene pushed me down a flight of stairs.

Ethan found me bleeding and promised me justice. He swore he would make her pay.

But days later, the police called. The security footage of the incident had been mysteriously erased. There was no evidence, no case.

That night, Ilene had me kidnapped. As her men tore at my clothes in the back of a van, I managed to call Ethan.

He rejected my call.

I jumped from the moving van. And as I ran for my life, bleeding on the cold asphalt, I made a vow.

This time, there would be no 39th remarriage.

This time, I would disappear.

Chapter 1

Today is our fifth wedding anniversary.

Ethan Bruce, my husband, stands before me. He possesses the same handsome severity as the day I met him, all sharp angles in his eyes and the straight line of his nose. But the words that issue from his mouth are a dissonance on such a day.

“Let’s get a divorce.”

I register no shock. I feel no particular sorrow. I merely watch him, a stillness settled in my chest, not of peace, but of vacancy.

“Do you know this is our ninth divorce?” I ask.

A flicker of something hunted crosses his eyes. His gaze slides away from mine, finding a point of interest on the wall behind me.

“Ilene Wolf is threatening to jump off the roof,” he says, his voice a low current of sound. “She says she won’t come down unless I divorce you. You know her anxiety…”

I cut him off. “Hmm, I know.”

I’ve known for five years. I’ve known through eight previous dissolutions.

“So, how long will this one last?” I ask, my voice even.

He looks surprised, as if he had braced himself for the storm of tears or the shriek of recrimination. He no longer receives what he expects from me.

“Once her mood stabilizes, we’ll get remarried,” he promises. He reaches out as if to touch my shoulder, but his hand arrests itself in mid-air and falls back to his side. “Okay?”

I study his face, the war playing out in the tight set of his jaw, and I am struck by the absurdity of it. A terrible, hollow comedy.

“Okay,” I say. “After all, we owe it to her.”

The courthouse staff knows us by name.

“Back again?” The clerk, a woman named Martha, pushes a pair of spectacles up the bridge of her nose. She retrieves the familiar forms from a drawer, the motion practiced and