Destruction: The December People, Book One by Sharon Bayliss Read Free Book Online

around for a divorce attorney,” she said. “You should do the same. I really want it to be as quick and painless as possible so it’s easier on the kids. You know how I operate. I don’t care to quibble over stupid details. To the point and done.”
    David had expected it. But that didn’t help at all. To him, it seemed like being told he had only a five percent chance of surviving a disease. That five percent could stretch to hold every second of every day of the forty more years he’d hoped to live. Or, in this case, years he hoped to be married.
    “No. Let’s shop around for a marriage counselor. You can’t just divorce me. We haven’t even talked. We haven’t attempted to save our marriage. You never just give up like that.”
    Amanda chewed on the inside of her cheek unconsciously.
    “Stop doing that. You’ll rip up the insides of your mouth,” David said. “It will hurt when you drink coffee.”
    “Tell me this, David. What kind of woman would I be if I didn’t divorce you? If I hesitate… if we spend months or years in therapy, maybe I’ll… I am not the kind of woman who stays married to a man who cheats on me.”
    “You’re saying you don’t want to try counseling because you’re afraid it might work?”
    “We’re getting divorced. There’s no other option that makes me feel okay with myself.”
    “Do you want to get divorced, or are you just doing it because that’s what you think you ought to do?”
    “Get a divorce attorney, David.”
    David didn’t remember ever changing Amanda’s mind about anything, unless he counted convincing her to try sushi. But he could find plenty of space to live in that five percent chance.
    “Before we move on to the next topic,” Amanda said. “I need you to understand our marriage is over. Nothing I am about to say should give you any hope about us. It’s all about the kids. Period. Do you understand that?”
    David couldn’t bring himself to say yes, or nod. “I hear you.”
    Amanda squinted at him. He expected her to call him on his word play, as she usually did, and force him to say yes. But she let it go.
    “I don’t want you here,” Amanda said. “Just the sight of your shoes in the closet makes me want to cry. Or tear the house down. I hate the thought of having to see you every day. Talk to you. It’s the worst thing I can think of.”
    She paused.
Dear God, let there be a ‘but.’
    “You need to move back in,” Amanda said. “Since the guest rooms are full, I figured you could sleep in your office. I need you to co-parent with me, and it looks better to the case manager if our family looks solid. And Evangeline asked me if you could live here.” Amanda stared at the palm of her hand for a long time before she spoke again, as if she had written her lines there in invisible ink. “I couldn’t refuse her.”
    “Thank you.”
    “You’re my roommate, not my husband. You understand?”
    “If that’s what you want.”
    “I don’t want any of this.”
    She hadn’t looked him in the eye since they had started talking. She ran her finger along the blue veins lining her forearm, as if noticing them for the first time.
    “I talked to the case manager in Odessa,” she said.
    “What did you tell her?”
    “I didn’t tell her the truth, if that’s what you mean.” Amanda flashed him her blues for a half second, as if she wanted to slap him in the face with her eyelashes. “She told me about what happened to them… and to Crystal. About the tick marks on their backs.”
    She picked up a glass orb paperweight from his desk and balanced it on her palm. The long-ago Father’s Day gift had never looked more like a deadly weapon.
    “I think she’s lying,” Amanda said.
    David weighed her words as Amanda did with the paperweight. “What do you mean?”
    “Or, perhaps, she is mistaken,” she amended.
    “How could she be mistaken?”
    “Crystal Carr,” Amanda said. Her name sounded so odd on Amanda’s lips. Especially…