I wasn’t on a plane.
He was not on any business trip.
They found him in a roadside motel, waiting for news.
When they told me, I felt something worse than fear.
Somewhat cold.
Empty.
As if mourning had come before death.
I didn’t want to see him that day. Or the next. Not even when the detective told me that Derek insisted that it was all a misunderstanding, that he had only hired someone to “scare” me and force me to accept the divorce without fighting custody or money. I didn’t want to hear him lie in that voice that for years I mistook for sincerity.
The only truth that mattered to me slept next to me at night with the light on, sometimes waking up startled, wondering if the house could explode again.
We moved to another state two months later.
