Chapter 6 - Packing Boxes and Broken Illusions
By Thursday afternoon, the driveway of the house looked like a staging ground for a refugee camp.
Two large U-Haul moving trucks were parked haphazardly across the cobblestone circle. Ethan was frantically hauling cardboard boxes out of the front door, sweat plastering his hair to his forehead, while Diane stood near the edge of the lawn directing movers with a voice that had lost all its former thunder and now sounded thin and desperate.
Jonathan and I pulled up in his town car just as Ethan staggered down the front steps carrying a heavy plastic storage bin.
When Ethan saw my car pull into the drive, he dropped the bin right on the gravel, the plastic cracking open and spilling winter sweaters across the driveway. He marched straight toward the passenger side, his face purple with rage.
Jonathan stepped out of the driver’s seat immediately, planting himself between Ethan and the car door.
“Back off, Mercer,” Jonathan warned, his voice low and dangerous.
“Ava! Open the damn window!” Ethan yelled, pounding his fist against the glass inches from my face. “You can’t do this! You can’t just throw us out on the street like garbage! We’re married!”
I rolled the window down three inches—just enough for my voice to carry clearly through the crisp autumn air.
“We aren't married anymore, Ethan,” I said, looking at him without a single ounce of anger or fear. “The divorce petition was filed yesterday morning. And as for the house—it was never yours to begin with.”
“You tricked me!” Ethan screamed, spittle flying from his lips. “You and your pompous lawyer! You let me live here, you let me work, you let me believe—!”
“I let you treat me like a servant in my own home because I was stupid enough to want a family,” I interrupted, my voice cutting through his tirade like glass. “I let your mother walk over me because I was afraid of being alone. But the moment I had a 104-degree fever, lying helpless on the floor, your mother didn't call a doctor. She tried to drag me down the stairs to cook dinner.”
Ethan blinked, taken aback. He glanced over his shoulder toward Diane, who was watching from the lawn with a pale, horrified expression.
“She… she told me you were just being dramatic,” Ethan muttered weakly.
“She told you the truth about what she did, and you didn't care,” I replied coldly. “Because to both of you, I wasn't a wife. I was an asset. Well, audit’s over, Ethan.”
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I rolled the window back up with a quiet electronic hum, shutting him out entirely.
Jonathan climbed back into the driver’s seat, put the car in reverse, and backed smoothly out of the driveway, leaving Ethan standing alone among his half-packed cardboard boxes on the gravel.
