Claire wiped her cheeks.
“What’s inside?”
“Open it.”
She pulled out the contents.
There were legal documents, a registry extract, a contract, and a ring of keys.
“A two-bedroom apartment,” Robert explained evenly. “In a new development. It’s already finished and ready to live in. Your mother and I saved for years. Aunt Linda contributed all of her savings. Uncle Mike sold his old car and his garage. Our entire ‘poor’ family put in what they could, Claire. We wanted you to have a home of your own and a decent beginning to married life, so you wouldn’t have to move from one rented place to another. That’s why there wasn’t much money in the wedding envelopes. Almost everything went toward this.”
Claire stared silently at the papers.
Her entire world seemed to tilt.
The people Ethan and his mother had called poor and greedy only hours earlier had given up their savings and sold their property so the newlyweds could have a home.
And Ethan…
Ethan had been ready to destroy their marriage over a three-hundred-thousand-dollar loan.
“The apartment is being registered only in your name,” Emily added. “Your father insisted. It’s a gift for you. It won’t be divided in a divorce. Tomorrow you’ll need to go and complete the paperwork properly.”
Claire slowly raised her eyes.
There were no tears left in them.
“So the apartment will remain mine?”
“Yours,” Robert said.
“Wonderful,” Claire murmured. “Just wonderful.”
“You’re not thinking of going back to him, are you?” her father asked.
“No,” Claire answered firmly. “Not today, not tomorrow, never. Call it divorce or annulment—I don’t care what the legal term is. I only want it over as quickly as possible.”
The next morning, Claire returned to the hotel solely to collect the rest of her belongings.
Ethan was sleeping across the bed with his arms spread wide. Catherine was gone.
Claire left a short note on the nightstand:
“I agree to the divorce. I’ll file the papers myself.”
The process ended quickly enough.
Ethan didn’t even want to deal with the paperwork in person. Catherine came in his place for some of the appointments, paying particularly close attention to making sure Claire made no claims against their property.
Claire signed everything without protest.
By then she was already living in her new apartment, slowly making the rooms her own and turning part of the balcony into a small workshop.
There, she returned to the work she loved: creating unusual arrangements from preserved moss, wood, and stone. Unexpectedly, the orders multiplied so quickly that clients had to wait several weeks for an opening.
Two weeks passed in a blur.
Claire felt freer than she had in a very long time.
Still, somewhere inside, she knew the peace would not last.
News traveled quickly.
On Saturday morning, someone rang the bell of her new apartment three times in a forceful, insistent manner.
Claire recognized the sound immediately.
She went to the door and looked through the peephole.
Ethan stood in the hallway.
In his hands was a huge bouquet of expensive peonies—the very flowers he had recently accused her of being wasteful for choosing.
Catherine stood behind him.
Next to her shifted Peter, Ethan’s friend and best man, the same friend Ethan had complained to so enthusiastically about the disappointing wedding gifts.
Claire opened the door.
“Hello, sweetheart!” Ethan stretched his lips into a broad smile, as if nothing had ever happened between them.
He took a step forward, intending to enter, but Claire remained in the doorway.
“Why are you greeting us like this? We talked things over. Everyone got carried away that night. You know how it is—nerves, the wedding, the loan, all the guests. I wasn’t myself.”
Catherine appeared over his shoulder wearing such a sugary smile that Claire felt sick.
“Claire, darling, stop being angry,” she sang. “There’s no family life without arguments. We didn’t know anything then! People told me your parents gave you an apartment. A two-bedroom place? How wonderful! What a surprise they arranged. They kept it completely secret!”
“We’re family, sweetheart,” Ethan continued, trying once more to step inside. “Everything is shared in a family. We should see the apartment and celebrate the housewarming. Maybe rearrange the furniture. I’ve already been thinking that one room could become my streaming studio…”
Anger rose inside Claire, the same anger she had spent two weeks burying beneath work.
She remembered the hotel room.
She remembered them calling her family poor.
She remembered her father placing the apartment documents in front of her.
She remembered the word “burden.”
“Family?” she repeated slowly. “You said yourself that you regretted our wedding.”
“I said it in the heat of the moment!” Ethan waved it away. “The guys were joking around, the loan was getting to me… Forget it already. The important thing is that we have a place now. We’ll deal with the debt too. We could rent out the second bedroom. Or Mom could move in with us and rent out her apartment. It makes perfect sense.”