The Wife They Learned To Regret Chapter 1

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day that cleaved my life in two.

It was our Ruby Anniversary—forty years of marriage. And yet, Richard slid a divorce agreement across the dining table, the paperwork stark white against the marble table.

He told me the one that got away had returned. He said the great regret of his youth could no longer go unresolved.

In my past life, I had refused to believe it. I had screamed, shattered glasses, and even held a blade to my own throat, threatening to end my life if he left.

Because of my hysterics, his long-lost first love finally gave up and married someone else. Richard, utterly consumed by grief, stepped off a second-story balcony. He didn't die, but the fall shattered his legs.

I forgave the cruelty. I swallowed the humiliation. I spent the next eighteen years quietly, meticulously caring for a bitter, disabled man.

Yet, on his deathbed, he gripped my wrist with bony, trembling fingers, his eyes blazing with a lifetime of resentment. He told me he hated me. He cursed me for ruining his one true epic romance.

Even our children believed I was the villain who had slowly killed their father's spirit. Once he was gone, they shipped me off to a moldering, abandoned family cabin upstate, leaving me to rot in isolation.

I died there, utterly alone, during a brutal August heatwave. It took days for the neighbors to notice the smell.

Forty years of devotion, of bending myself until I broke, and that was the ending I earned.

* * *

Richard, a man who had never once cared for sentimentality, suddenly demanded we celebrate our fortieth anniversary. He insisted I cook an elaborate feast and summon the children home.

Our daughter, Nicola, arrived first.

She walked through the front door, tossed her designer clutch onto the sofa, and collapsed beside it with an exhausted sigh.

"Mom, is this really necessary?" she groaned. "At your age, putting on this whole dog-and-pony show? It's a waste of everyone's weekend."

"It was your father's idea," I said, my voice eerily calm. "He's the one who asked you both to come."

Nicola rolled her eyes, clearly not buying a word of it. "Please. Stop using Dad as your shield. Since when does he remember things like anniversaries?"

I didn't answer. I just quietly set the chilled appetizers on the table.

Our son, Jason, walked in right as dinner was ready.

The moment he saw me, he sighed. "Mom, look, Nicola and I are busy people. You can't just guilt-trip us into coming over for every little milestone."

"Exactly. It's so dramatic," Nicola chimed in, picking at her nails. "Honestly, I don't know how Dad has put up with it for so long."

I opened my mouth, the instinct to defend myself rising in my throat, but I forced it back down.

My daughter found me annoying. My son found me burdensome.

It was exactly how they had treated me in my past life. Death had changed nothing.

The front door clicked open. Richard walked in, holding a manila folder. There was a strange, tight energy radiating from him.

Jason didn't notice the tension. He immediately lit up and jogged over to his father.

"Dad! That contact you gave me at the firm worked miracles. I’m getting the promotion," Jason beamed, guiding Richard toward the armchair. "Sit down, look what I got you."

Jason pulled out a stunning, vintage crystal decanter set with a rare bottle of scotch. A gift that easily cost a few thousand dollars.

Nicola immediately bounced up, pulling a navy cashmere jacket from a high-end boutique bag.

"Dad, the mornings are getting cold. You need to dress warmer. I swear," she shot a pointed look at me, "I don't know what Mom is thinking half the time. She obsesses over this useless ceremonial stuff but completely neglects actually taking care of you."

I stood by the dining table, watching my children crowd around their father.

In that quiet, breathing space of the room, a heavy truth settled over me. To them, I was nothing more than an unpaid maid. A fixture in the house with no inherent value, regardless of how much of my own soul I had poured into the foundation of this family.

Richard was the sun they orbited. I was just the gravity holding the house together, invisible and unappreciated.

Richard took a deep breath and gently set the expensive gifts aside. He looked at me, a grave, heavy stare, and then turned to our children.

"I'm the one who asked you here today," he said.

Both Nicola and Jason froze, exchanging bewildered looks.

"There is something very important I need to say."

Richard unclasped the manila folder. He turned his back on the kids and walked toward me. "I've thought about this for a long time."

He placed the documents on the table, right next to the roast I had spent hours preparing.

"Alice, I want a divorce."

The words hung in the air.

"Carol came to see me," he continued, his voice softening just a fraction at her name. "You know how it is. We missed our chance when we were young. I don't want to lose her again..."

Carol. His high school sweetheart.

The same woman who had ruthlessly dumped him when he was a nobody. The woman he wept over while I picked up the pieces. I was the one who stood by him through the darkest, lowest valleys of his life.

But four decades of a living, breathing marriage couldn't compete with the phantom of a first love.

In my previous life, it played out exactly like this. The bombshell dropped right as I was about to pour the champagne.

Back then, I refused to sign. I couldn't comprehend how a man could be so cold. I sobbed. I screamed. I grabbed the carving knife from the counter and pressed it against my throat.

“If you walk out that door, I will end it right here!” I had shrieked.

And Nicola had scoffed, “Mom, what century are you living in? Stop being so toxic. Dad is getting older, he wants to be happy! Why can’t you just let him go?”

Jason hadn’t spoken, but his silence was a roaring endorsement of his father.

I hadn't listened to anyone. “Richard! As long as I am breathing, you are a married man. You want out? You'll have to be a widower!”

The blade had bitten into my skin, drawing a thin line of blood. It terrified Richard enough to back down. We stayed married. But the anniversary was permanently ruined.

When Carol realized he wasn't leaving, she swiftly married a wealthy, retired executive.

Richard lost his mind. He stopped eating. He locked himself in his study, staring at her old photographs in the dark.

And then, one humid night, he stepped off the balcony.

He didn't die, but his legs shattered. A comminuted fracture that required multiple surgeries. Carol never visited him once. Not even a phone call.

It was me. I slept on a hard plastic chair in his hospital room for three months. I emptied his bedpans. I bathed him with a sponge. I spoon-fed him.

I pushed his wheelchair to physical therapy, never missing a single day. I massaged his atrophied muscles. I soaked his feet.

For eighteen agonizing years.

And yet, as he took his dying breath, he looked at me with pure, unadulterated hatred.

At his funeral, Nicola turned her red, tear-streaked face to me and hissed, "Mom, this is all your fault! You ruined his life. If you hadn't trapped him with that knife, he never would have jumped!"

Jason didn't yell. But the look of absolute disgust in his eyes hurt worse than any insult. Finally, he whispered, "I hate you for what you did to him, Mom."

Three days after the burial, they packed my bags and dumped me at the dilapidated cabin. Out of sight, out of mind.

The suffocating memory of dying in that sweltering, airless room washed over me, heavy and foul. It took me a long moment to fully open my eyes and ground myself in the present.

I looked down at the bold letters on the paper: MARITAL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT.

My heart, which had once felt like it was being ripped through my ribs, was entirely still.

I picked up the paperwork. I reached for the silver pen lying by the good china.

Before any of them could process what was happening, I signed my name on the dotted line.

I slid it back across the table. "Alright. I release you. I wish you both the best."

Richard flinched.

He stared at the signature, utterly stunned. "You... you agree?"