A Shower of Petals

At my mother’s birthday dinner, my wife, Isabelle, uncorked the bottle of Macallan she’d brought. As she raised her glass for a toast, her voice cut through the quiet chatter. “You know, Mom,” she began, a small, curious smile on her lips, “I’ve always wondered.” “What’s your secret? How on earth did you manage to raise a son like Alex? So spineless, so selfish, and so utterly oblivious to it all.” My mother’s hand, holding her glass, trembled slightly. I calmly placed my napkin on the table. “I agree to the divorce.” Isabelle’s hand paused for a fraction of a second, but her smile never wavered. “Good. I’m glad you’ve finally seen reason.” That night, she handed me the divorce papers. “Don’t worry,” she said, her tone magnanimous. “If you ever need anything, you can always come to me.” I said nothing, just picked up the pen and signed my name. Isabelle had started her affair a year ago. She’d been hounding me for a divorce for the last six months. In that time, she’d become relentless, resorting to one vile tactic after another. She threatened my best friend’s job to get him to convince me to leave her. She’d brazenly video chat with her lover, a high school classmate of hers, right in our living room. And now, she had stooped to publicly humiliating my mother just to break me. If she wanted a divorce this badly, I would give it to her. I just hoped she wouldn’t regret it when she had nothing left. The moment my signature was on the paper, Isabelle was on the phone with her lawyer, unable to hide the excitement in her voice. “Yes, he signed it.” “Great. Meet me at Portside Tower in a bit. We’ll go over the details.” I listened, my face a mask of indifference, and reached up to take down the wedding photo hanging on the wall. We’d taken it when we were broke. It cost a hundred and ninety-eight dollars, a cheap package deal. Even then, I thought it was terrible. Our faces were photoshopped into pale, uncanny versions of ourselves. But I had kept it on the wall all these years. It was the only proof left of what we once had. A heavy pressure settled in my chest. Isabelle, finished with her call, saw me holding the frame. She wasn’t surprised. Instead, with a breezy confidence, she said: “Don’t rush to pack. We still have a month before the divorce is final. You can stay here in the penthouse for now.” “And don’t worry about the assets. I won’t make things difficult for you.” “I’m just glad you agreed without making a scene. I really didn’t want to drag this through the courts.” She glanced at her watch. “Well, since that’s settled, I should go. Ryan’s waiting for me. He gets pouty if I’m back too late.” Without waiting for a reply, she hurried to the entryway, slipped on her shoes, grabbed her car keys, and was gone. The moment the door slammed shut, my body went limp. I collapsed onto the sofa. The wedding photo fell from my hands, its cheap wooden frame shattering on the floor. I didn’t want to be weak, but the pain in my chest was unbearable. This past year, ever since I found out about the affair, had been a living hell. First came the shock. How could Isabelle betray ten years of our lives together? Then came the heartbreak. I had been willing to look the other way, to let her have her fun, but she still wanted to leave me. She did everything she could to force my hand, to humiliate and wound me. But what could I do? It’s like the relationship experts say: it only takes one person to end a marriage. Especially when that person is a woman who has made up her mind. You can’t imagine the lengths a woman will go to, the cruel and vicious things she’ll do, when she’s determined to leave you. Like tonight, telling my mother to her face that she’d failed as a parent. She knew my mother had a heart condition. She knew she’d just had major surgery three months ago. I had spent the last six months hiding our problems from my mother, desperate not to worry her. But Isabelle, in her quest for freedom, had shattered that peace without a second thought. The pain in my chest intensified. I couldn’t take it anymore. I decided to go lie down. I’d barely taken two steps when my phone rang. It was my mother’s caregiver. My heart seized. I knew. The moment I answered, her panicked voice came through the line. “Mr. Miller, you need to get to Hillside General right now! Your mother… she wasn’t feeling well after the party. She’s in critical condition! They’re trying to save her!” Tears welled in my eyes, and my hand holding the phone began to shake. Panic, cold and sharp, washed over me. I remembered the doctor’s warning when she was discharged: Her heart is extremely weak. Any stress, any shock could be fatal. It was a miracle we saved her last time. I forced myself to breathe, to stay calm. I told the caregiver to stay with my mother and that I was on my way. I rushed to the bedroom, threw on a jacket, and started calling Isabelle. The last time my mother had a heart attack, Isabelle had been the one to find the top specialist who saved her life. I needed her to call him again. But from my apartment, to the elevator, to the parking garage, I called Isabelle twenty times. She didn’t pick up once. In desperation, as I started the car, I called her assistant, Jenna. She answered on the first ring. “Mr. Miller.” “Jenna, where’s Isabelle?” I asked, my voice tight. “Can you get me the number for that specialist she knows? My mother’s had a heart attack. She’s in the ER.” There was a two-second pause. When Jenna spoke again, her voice was full of regret. “I’m sorry, Mr. Miller. Ryan called me a little while ago. He said you signed the divorce papers and that I’m not to help you with anything anymore. I can’t contact Ms. Isabelle on your behalf.” “I’m really sorry, sir. It’s my job on the line. You know how… devoted Ms. Isabelle is to Ryan. I can’t go against his wishes. Maybe you could try calling her again?” She hung up. I slammed on the brakes, the car screeching to a halt inches from a concrete barrier. A cold rage spread through my body. I thought back to the past year, since Isabelle had met Ryan. At first, I didn’t see him as a threat. He was a nobody. A high school dropout working as a barista in some trendy cafe. I truly believed Isabelle was just having a momentary lapse, a mid-life crisis. That changed when Ryan started texting me, taunting me, insulting me. When I showed the messages to Isabelle, she was unnervingly calm. “He’s just a kid,” she’d said. “Cut him some slack.” That’s when I realized Ryan was more calculating than I’d thought. Still, I didn’t take him seriously. Not until he provoked me into a fight that landed me in the hospital with a bleeding ulcer. Isabelle’s reaction was a cold splash of water to the face. “You’ve always had stomach problems,” she said, her eyes blank. “What does that have to do with Ryan?” “The affair was my mistake. It has nothing to do with him.” In that moment, a genuine fear took root in my heart. I started digging into Ryan’s background. And I discovered why Isabelle was so captivated by him. It wasn’t about his charm or his looks. He had been her deskmate in high school. During a time when she was desperately poor, he had brought her breakfast every single day for three years. Sometimes, he’d bring her fried rice his mother made at her street food stall. It was that connection, that shared history of starting from nothing, that had blinded her. It was why she was willing to throw everything away to be with him. The moment I found out, the pain was a physical blow. Ryan and Isabelle’s story began when they had nothing. But hadn’t ours? Isabelle and I met in college. I’d missed my first-choice program and ended up shuffled into Computer Science, a major I hated and didn’t understand. The lectures were like a foreign language to me. But Isabelle… she was a prodigy. As a freshman, she was already writing her own code, building her own games. Desperate not to fail, I asked her if she would tutor me. She agreed, with one condition. “You buy me three meals a day,” she’d said with a grin. That’s when I learned how difficult her life was. Her father had passed away when she was young, and her mother supported her by selling trinkets at a street market. Maybe it was because we were both from single-parent homes, both having lost a father, but we just clicked. After six months of tutoring sessions, we started dating. She was poor, it was true, but only for that first year. In our sophomore year, she started doing freelance coding work online. Soon, she had money. More money than any other student we knew. And she was so good to me. No matter how busy she was, if I called, she would drop everything to go out with me. She sent half of her earnings to her mother. The other half, she gave to me to put into a savings account. I thought our life would just go on like that. But then, one rainy night during our senior year, she showed up at my dorm, soaking wet, and told me we were over. I couldn’t believe it. I grabbed her, demanding to know why. She collapsed in the rain, sobbing, and told me her startup had failed. She was a million dollars in debt. I had no idea she’d even started a business. She’d maxed out credit cards and taken out predatory online loans. Her partner had vanished with the last of the money. My heart ached for her. I held her tight and told her I had a solution. I went home and knelt before my mother, the woman who had always cherished me, and begged her to help Isabelle. My mother, a retired teacher, sighed deeply. “Alex, I do have a million dollars saved for you. But that’s for your future, for you to start a family. Are you absolutely sure you want to give it all to her? If you do this, I won’t have anything left to give you when you get married.” The words were like a weight on my chest, but I looked her in the eye. “I don’t want the money. I just want Isabelle to be okay.” I took that million dollars and paid off all of Isabelle’s debts. Overwhelmed with gratitude, Isabelle knelt before my mother and bowed her head to the floor three times. She swore, with tears in her eyes, that she would spend the rest of her life making me happy. But in the end, my million dollars, our shared story of struggle, couldn’t compete with three years of high school breakfast. My chest felt tight, like I couldn’t breathe. I tried calling Isabelle one more time. This time, someone answered. But it wasn’t Isabelle. It was Ryan. His voice was dripping with the same old taunting arrogance. “What do you want?” “I need to speak to Isabelle. It’s important.” He scoffed. “She’s in the shower. Can’t talk. And for the record, stop calling her. She’s going to be my wife soon.” I felt the air leave my lungs, but I clenched my fist, forcing the words out. My voice was a low plea. “Ryan, my mother is in the hospital. I need Isabelle to contact a doctor for me.” “Please. I’m begging you. Just let me talk to her.” The words “I’m begging you” felt like acid in my mouth. My eyes burned with humiliation. Ryan just laughed. “Then just let your mom die.” He hung up. Listening to the dial tone, I lost control. With a choked, guttural roar, I smashed my phone against the car window. The pain in my chest was a physical tear. But I had no time to break down. I forced myself to start the car and speed towards the hospital. My mother was waiting for me. But when I arrived, what I saw was not a hospital room. It was a body covered by a white sheet. My legs gave out. I nearly collapsed. The caregiver rushed over, her words a frantic blur. “Mr. Miller, I swear, it wasn’t my fault… I was with her the whole time. The second I saw something was wrong, I called 911. The dispatcher told me what medicine to give her…” A thousand needles pricked at my heart. Tears streamed down my face. It wasn’t her fault. It was mine. I knew Isabelle had been unhinged lately, but I still dragged her to my mother’s birthday party. How stupid was I? Did I really think that if we just spent more time together, she would change her mind? That I could somehow “win” her back from Ryan? And what was the result? Not only did she force me into a divorce in front of my entire family, she killed my mother. My heart felt like it was going to explode. But after a moment of pure, blinding grief, I pushed myself up from the floor. There was a funeral to arrange. Affairs to put in order. I could not fall apart. So, even as my chest heaved with silent sobs, I forced my trembling fingers to text our family and friends, to call the funeral home. And in the midst of that nightmare, Isabelle, the woman I had called a hundred times, finally sent me a text. [City Hall, 9 AM tomorrow. Don’t forget.] Reading that message, the pain in my heart went numb. This past year, I had been hurt, I had been miserable, I had been in despair. But through it all, a part of me had never let go of Isabelle. In that moment, that part of me died. Perhaps it was because the pain was so absolute, but a strange clarity washed over me. [I can’t tomorrow. Next Monday.] I turned off my phone and got back to work. The next few days were a blur. A constant stream of visitors offering condolences, of relatives to comfort. So many people came. My mother’s former students, our relatives, even some of Isabelle’s family. But not Isabelle. Instead, I got a text from Ryan. [Heard your mom died. lol. That’s rough. Guess you’re an orphan now? Serves you right.] [If you’d just divorced her sooner, maybe your mom would still be alive. You killed her, you loser.] He followed it with a video. On a sun-drenched beach, Isabelle was lounging in a bikini, sipping from a coconut. Ryan panned the camera from her to himself. He ran towards her, and they kissed, long and deep. Then, Ryan asked with faux innocence, “Isabelle, who do you love more? Me or your husband?” Isabelle rolled her eyes. “I’m divorcing him for you. Don’t ask such stupid questions. You must be bored.” She pulled him down for another kiss. The video ended. Tears streamed down my face. But I wiped them away after a single, shuddering breath. I forwarded the video to my lawyer. [Another one for the collection.] He replied instantly. [Received, Mr. Miller.] [How is the research on Isabelle’s company coming along?] [Almost complete. The entire team is working overtime. Rest assured, we will get you what you deserve.] I gripped my phone. [You know I don’t want compensation. I want Isabelle bankrupt and in prison.] The reply was swift. [Understood, Mr. Miller. We will do everything in our power.] I put the phone down and walked back to my mother’s memorial. “Mom, I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “This is my fault. But I promise you, the people who did this to you… they will pay.” In the days that followed, I learned the full truth. My mother had known about Isabelle’s affair for six months. Ryan had told her himself. My mother was a retired teacher. After my father died in a car crash when I was ten, she never remarried. She raised me on her own, being both a mother and a father to me. Her greatest wish was to see me happy. But Ryan… he had sent my mother videos of Isabelle and me fighting. He sent her screenshots of texts where Isabelle criticized me, complained about me. He had even “advised” her to convince me to get a divorce. That was what caused her first heart attack three months ago. The shock of it all. And it was what killed her. After Isabelle and I left her birthday party, Ryan had gone to see her. He told her I was holding back their true love. He told her that even if I clung to the marriage, I would be thrown out with nothing. That night, consumed with worry for me, my mother collapsed. She never woke up. I found the recordings of their conversations on her phone when I was going through her things. Listening to Ryan’s cruel, relentless voice, I couldn’t imagine the agony my mother must have been in. And yet, for six months, she never let on. Every time she called, it was just to remind me to eat well, to take care of myself. The pain was a blade twisting in my gut. Ryan wanted to take my place? Fine. He could have it. He could have the life of a man married to a bankrupt, soon-to-be-convicted felon.