Declan Pryce walked into my workshop without knocking. Six months of marriage, and he still didn't knock.
Declan: Isla. We need to finish this.
He set the folder on my bench, next to my tweezers and the watch I was working on.
Paper on wood. It sounded like a door shutting.
Declan: Divorce papers. Everything's agreed.
Isla: Agreed by who?
Declan: By the people who wrote the contract.
Then he took a check from his jacket and laid it beside the papers.
The number had a lot of zeros. Enough zeros to make a person quiet.
Declan: The contract's over. This settles it.
Isla: Settles what, exactly?
My hands were steady. That surprised me.
Inside, something dropped. Like a watch slipping off a bench and hitting the floor.
I thought of the coffee I made him. The dinners I ate alone in that big house, waiting for a man who never came home early.
Convenience. That's the word I'd been avoiding.
He leaned in to point at a line. His shoulder brushed mine, and my skin noticed before I could stop it.
Same soap. Same cold air. The same smell from the day he asked me to sign.
Declan: Sign today, the money clears tomorrow.
Isla: You think that's the part I want.
For half a second he looked at my face like a catalog he'd misread. Then it was gone.
Declan: It's the fair part. Take it.
I picked up the check. His shoulders came down. He thought I was done arguing.
I slid it back. It crossed the papers and stopped against his fingers.
My hand didn't shake. Not once.
Isla: I don't take payment for love.
Isla: Keep your money. I'll sign your papers for free.
Declan: That's pride talking.
Isla: No. That's me talking. For once, you're listening.
He picked the check up and held it. He didn't put it away.
He just stood there, looking at the amount like it had failed him.
Declan: Isla.
Isla: You can go now. You got what you came for.
Except he didn't move right away.
When the door clicked shut, my whole body went cold.
I let myself feel it for one minute. Then I picked up my tweezers.
He'd taken six months of me. He wasn't getting my work too.