The Wife They Learned To Regret

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day that cleaved my life in two.

It was our Ruby Anniversaryforty years of marriage. And yet, Richard slid a divorce agreement across the dining table, the paperwork stark white against the marble table.

He told me the one that got away had returned. He said the great regret of his youth could no longer go unresolved.

In my past life, I had refused to believe it. I had screamed, shattered glasses, and even held a blade to my own throat, threatening to end my life if he left.

Because of my hysterics, his long-lost first love finally gave up and married someone else. Richard, utterly consumed by grief, stepped off a second-story balcony. He didn't die, but the fall shattered his legs.

I forgave the cruelty. I swallowed the humiliation. I spent the next eighteen years quietly, meticulously caring for a bitter, disabled man.

Yet, on his deathbed, he gripped my wrist with bony, trembling fingers, his eyes blazing with a lifetime of resentment. He told me he hated me. He cursed me for ruining his one true epic romance.

Even our children believed I was the villain who had slowly killed their father's spirit. Once he was gone, they shipped me off to a moldering, abandoned family cabin upstate, leaving me to rot in isolation.

I died there, utterly alone, during a brutal August heatwave. It took days for the neighbors to notice the smell.

Forty years of devotion, of bending myself until I broke, and that was the ending I earned.

Richard, a man who had never once cared for sentimentality, suddenly demanded we celebrate our fortieth anniversary. He insisted I cook an elaborate feast and summon the children home.

Our daughter, Nicola, arrived first.

She walked through the front door, tossed her designer clutch onto the sofa, and collapsed beside it with an exhausted sigh.

"Mom, is this really necessary?" she groaned. "At your age, putting on this whole dog-and-pony show? It's a waste of everyone's weekend."

"It was your father's idea," I said, my voice eerily calm. "He's the one who asked you both to come."

Nicola rolled her eyes, clearly not buying a word of it. "Please. Stop using Dad as your shield. Since when does he remember things like anniversaries?"

I didn't answer. I just quietly set the chilled appetizers on the table.

Our son, Jason, walked in right as dinner was ready.

The moment he saw me, he sighed. "Mom, look, Nicola and I are busy people. You can't just guilt-trip us into coming over for every little milestone."

"Exactly. It's so dramatic," Nicola chimed in, picking at her nails. "Honestly, I don't know how Dad has put up with it for so long."

I opened my mouth, the instinct to defend myself rising in my throat, but I forced it back down.

My daughter found me annoying. My son found me burdensome.

It was exactly how they had treated me in my past life. Death had changed nothing.

The front door clicked open. Richard walked in, holding a manila folder. There was a strange, tight energy radiating from him.

Jason didn't notice the tension. He immediately lit up and jogged over to his father.

"Dad! That contact you gave me at the firm worked miracles. Im getting the promotion," Jason beamed, guiding Richard toward the armchair. "Sit down, look what I got you."

Jason pulled out a stunning, vintage crystal decanter set with a rare bottle of scotch. A gift that easily cost a few thousand dollars.

Nicola immediately bounced up, pulling a navy cashmere jacket from a high-end boutique bag.

"Dad, the mornings are getting cold. You need to dress warmer. I swear," she shot a pointed look at me, "I don't know what Mom is thinking half the time. She obsesses over this useless ceremonial stuff but completely neglects actually taking care of you."

I stood by the dining table, watching my children crowd around their father.

In that quiet, breathing space of the room, a heavy truth settled over me. To them, I was nothing more than an unpaid maid. A fixture in the house with no inherent value, regardless of how much of my own soul I had poured into the foundation of this family.

Richard was the sun they orbited. I was just the gravity holding the house together, invisible and unappreciated.

Richard took a deep breath and gently set the expensive gifts aside. He looked at me, a grave, heavy stare, and then turned to our children.

"I'm the one who asked you here today," he said.

Both Nicola and Jason froze, exchanging bewildered looks.

"There is something very important I need to say."

Richard unclasped the manila folder. He turned his back on the kids and walked toward me. "I've thought about this for a long time."

He placed the documents on the table, right next to the roast I had spent hours preparing.

"Alice, I want a divorce."

The words hung in the air.

"Carol came to see me," he continued, his voice softening just a fraction at her name. "You know how it is. We missed our chance when we were young. I don't want to lose her again..."

Carol. His high school sweetheart.

The same woman who had ruthlessly dumped him when he was a nobody. The woman he wept over while I picked up the pieces. I was the one who stood by him through the darkest, lowest valleys of his life.

But four decades of a living, breathing marriage couldn't compete with the phantom of a first love.

In my previous life, it played out exactly like this. The bombshell dropped right as I was about to pour the champagne.

Back then, I refused to sign. I couldn't comprehend how a man could be so cold. I sobbed. I screamed. I grabbed the carving knife from the counter and pressed it against my throat.

If you walk out that door, I will end it right here! I had shrieked.

And Nicola had scoffed, Mom, what century are you living in? Stop being so toxic. Dad is getting older, he wants to be happy! Why cant you just let him go?

Jason hadnt spoken, but his silence was a roaring endorsement of his father.

I hadn't listened to anyone. Richard! As long as I am breathing, you are a married man. You want out? You'll have to be a widower!

The blade had bitten into my skin, drawing a thin line of blood. It terrified Richard enough to back down. We stayed married. But the anniversary was permanently ruined.

When Carol realized he wasn't leaving, she swiftly married a wealthy, retired executive.

Richard lost his mind. He stopped eating. He locked himself in his study, staring at her old photographs in the dark.

And then, one humid night, he stepped off the balcony.

He didn't die, but his legs shattered. A comminuted fracture that required multiple surgeries. Carol never visited him once. Not even a phone call.

It was me. I slept on a hard plastic chair in his hospital room for three months. I emptied his bedpans. I bathed him with a sponge. I spoon-fed him.

I pushed his wheelchair to physical therapy, never missing a single day. I massaged his atrophied muscles. I soaked his feet.

For eighteen agonizing years.

And yet, as he took his dying breath, he looked at me with pure, unadulterated hatred.

At his funeral, Nicola turned her red, tear-streaked face to me and hissed, "Mom, this is all your fault! You ruined his life. If you hadn't trapped him with that knife, he never would have jumped!"

Jason didn't yell. But the look of absolute disgust in his eyes hurt worse than any insult. Finally, he whispered, "I hate you for what you did to him, Mom."

Three days after the burial, they packed my bags and dumped me at the dilapidated cabin. Out of sight, out of mind.

The suffocating memory of dying in that sweltering, airless room washed over me, heavy and foul. It took me a long moment to fully open my eyes and ground myself in the present.

I looked down at the bold letters on the paper: MARITAL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT.

My heart, which had once felt like it was being ripped through my ribs, was entirely still.

I picked up the paperwork. I reached for the silver pen lying by the good china.

Before any of them could process what was happening, I signed my name on the dotted line.

I slid it back across the table. "Alright. I release you. I wish you both the best."

Richard flinched.

He stared at the signature, utterly stunned. "You... you agree?"

I ignored the flicker of something complicatedmaybe guilt, maybe disbeliefin Richard's eyes. I simply pressed the folder into his chest.

Nicola gasped, her eyes lighting up. "Oh my god, Mom! You're finally being reasonable! You should have done this ages ago!"

Jason let out a bark of relieved laughter. "Seriously. If you had just been this chill from the start, Dad wouldn't have had to carry this around for so long."

Richard finally exhaled, a profound look of relief washing over his aging face.

"Dad, since Mom's on board," Nicola said, linking her arm through his, "why don't we just have Carol move in right away? I mean, she's practically family now."

"Yeah, absolutely," Jason chimed in eagerly. "It's a crime leaving her all alone in that hotel."

I stood there, listening to the children I had carried in my body, the children I had sacrificed my youth to raise.

They already knew.

They had known about their father's affair with Carol for a long time. They had actively helped him hide it from me.

"This house," I began, my voice slicing through their celebration like a cold blade, "was purchased using my money for the down payment. Until my name is off the deed and I have packed my bags, she does not step foot inside."

Nicola's face hardened. "Mom, what is your problem?"

I didn't even look at her. I turned directly to Richard. "Since we have a mandatory waiting period, we should get the lawyers to draft the asset division immediately."

The living room plunged into dead silence.

Nicola exploded first. "Mom! What are you talking about? You've been married your whole lives, and you're going to penny-pinch him now?"

Jason quickly backed her up. "Yeah, exactly! It's not like the money won't eventually come to me and Nico anyway. Why do you need to be so petty and calculate every cent?"

I looked right past them. "Richard, the seed money you used to start your firm came from my trust fund. From my family."

"I want my share back."

Richard's jaw tightened. His lips pressed into a thin, pale line.

"Mom, you're a senior citizen! What do you even need that much money for?" Nicola demanded, her voice rising in panic. "And you haven't spoken to your family in decades! Why are you bringing them up now?"

It was true. When my wealthy, old-money parents found out I was draining my accounts to fund Richard's startup, they drew a hard line. They warned me he was a leech. They told me to break it off, or they would cut me out.

Drunk on the illusion of true love, I chose Richard. I walked away from my family.

Looking at him now, I realized my parents had been entirely right.

Jason practically threw himself between me and his father, terrified I was about to drain his inheritance. He started begging Richard not to listen to me.

I looked at my son and let out a soft, dry laugh. "Jason. You bought an eighty-thousand-dollar SUV last month. Where did the cash come from?"

Jason choked on his words, his face flushing crimson.

I turned my gaze to Nicola. "And you. You spent a month touring the Amalfi Coast this summer. Racked up nearly twenty grand. Who paid the credit card bill?"

Nicola looked away, her mouth snapping shut.

"That money came from our joint accounts. Half of everything in those accounts belongs to me." I took a step closer to Richard, my voice dropping to a deadly calm. "Furthermore, if it weren't for my startup capital, your father wouldn't have a dime to his name today."

Richard stared at the floor for a long, agonizing minute. Finally, a muscle feathered in his jaw.

"Fine," he muttered. "Whatever you want. We'll do it your way."

"Dad!" Jason and Nicola screamed in unison.

Richard held up a hand, silencing them. "Stop. As long as I can be with Carol, the money doesn't matter."

Over the next few days, Richard was remarkably compliant. The transfers, the deed modifications, the legal paperworkit was handled with brutal efficiency.

Jason and Nicola, on the other hand, spent the week sending passive-aggressive texts to the extended family group chat. The general consensus was that I had lost my mind with greed, violently skinning their poor father alive on my way out the door.

I didn't care.

For the first time in forty years, I started investing in myself.

I went online and bought things on impulse. A heavy, pure silk nightgown for three hundred dollars. A jar of La Mer face cream for four hundred. A pair of handmade Italian leather loafers I had wanted for a decade but never dared to buy, nearly a thousand dollars.

I had never spent money like this on myself.

When Richard was building his business, we lived on pennies. I clipped coupons. I mended clothes. Even when the money started rolling in, the scarcity mindset was permanently etched into my bones. I always saved the best cuts of meat, the nicest things, for him and the kids.

Now, I had absolutely no one to save for but myself.

For the next week, I slept in until noon.

Usually, by that time, I would have already vacuumed the entire house, done the laundry, and had a hot lunch waiting on the stove.

I woke up to the sound of Nicola yelling from the hallway. "Mom! Are you seriously not cooking again today?"

"You've been on strike all week! What is your problem?"

I walked right past her, heading toward the master bathroom to wash my face. "I spent my whole life serving you people. I'm done."

Nicola stood frozen in the hallway, her mouth opening and closing like a suffocating fish.

Jason stumbled out of his room, aggressively rubbing his eyes. "Mom, did you iron my blue button-down? I have a massive pitch today."

I didn't even turn around. "Iron it yourself."

"I don't know how to iron!" Jason panicked, his voice cracking. "You always do it"

I shut the bathroom door, cutting off his whining.

I got dressed and left the house.

I went straight to a high-end medical spa downtown. I had driven past it a hundred times over the years. Whenever I had thought about going in, I would picture Richard staying up until 2 A.M. to finish a proposal, and the guilt would stop me. It's too expensive, I would tell myself. Save the money.

Not anymore.

After a facial and a massage, I went to a boutique and bought an entirely new wardrobe.

My days fell into a luxurious rhythm. I left early and came home late. I walked through the botanical gardens in the mornings. I spent my afternoons reading in a sunlit corner of the public library. I went to the cinema and watched whatever I wanted, without having to accommodate anyone else's schedule.

Back at the house, the complaints grew louder. First it was the lack of hot meals. Then the overflowing laundry baskets. Finally, they couldn't even figure out how to reset the breaker when the hot water heater tripped.

One afternoon, I walked through the front door after a lovely day of shopping, only to freeze in the entryway.

Carol was sitting in the middle of my living room.

Jason and Nicola were hovering over her like attendants, pouring her tea and fluffing her pillows.

When I walked in, Carol didn't even bother to stand. She just looked at me from beneath her perfectly styled eyelashes, acting for all the world like the lady of the manor.

"Long time no see, Alice," she purred.

"The kids were just telling me how you've completely abandoned them. No cooking, no cleaning. It breaks my heart." She pressed a hand to her chest. "Whatever issues we adults have, we shouldn't punish the children, should we?"

She elegantly rose from the sofa and stepped toward me, dropping her voice so the kids couldn't hear. "Honestly, if you hate it here so much, you should just pack your bags and leave. Stop dragging this out out of spite."

She smirked, a vicious gleam in her eyes. "Your husband doesn't want you. Your kids despise you. Your whole life is a pathetic failure. If I were you, I would have thrown myself off a bridge by now."

A white-hot wave of fury crashed over me. Without thinking, I raised my hand to slap the smug look off her face.

Before my hand could connect, someone grabbed my wrist and violently shoved me back.

It was Richard.

"Don't you dare!" he bellowed, his face red with rage. "Carol is a guest in this house!"

Before I could even defend myself, Carol's demeanor shifted instantly. She stumbled backward, clutching her chest, her eyes welling with crocodile tears.

"Richard, please, it's okay," she whimpered. "I was only trying to stick up for the kids. I didn't think Alice would get physical."

Richard turned to me, his eyes colder and more hateful than I had ever seen them. "Apologize to her. Now."

I let out a harsh, bitter laugh. "You want me to apologize to the woman you're sleeping with? You're out of your mind."

Suddenly, Jason and Nicola rushed forward, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Carol as if forming a human shield.

"You are so out of line, Mom!" Jason snarled. "Carol is nothing but sweet to us, and you think that gives you the right to abuse her?"

I stared at my son in sheer disbelief. He was defending the woman who was destroying our family.

Nicola looked me up and down, her lip curling in disgust. "Seriously, I don't know how I ended up with a mother like you."

Her eyes landed on my throatspecifically, the new gold pendant necklace and the matching drop earrings I had bought myself that morning.

"Are those new?" Nicola sneered. "You know what? Give them to Carol. That can be your apology. It's a waste of money putting jewelry on someone your age anyway."

Before I could react, Nicola lunged forward and yanked the gold chain right off my neck. She spun around, offering it to Carol. "Here. I'm sure it'll look so much better on you."

Carol put a hand over her mouth, feigning shock while her eyes danced with triumph. "Oh, sweetie, you shouldn't have... but it is lovely. Thank you."

My entire body trembled. A primal, protective rage possessed me. "Give that back! It's mine!"

I lunged for Carol, but Jason caught me by the shoulders and roughly shoved me back. "Are you really doing this over a piece of metal? God, you're embarrassing."

"Exactly!" Nicola yelled, lunging at me again. "Take the earrings off too!"

"Nicola, stop!" I screamed, struggling against Jason's grip. "I am your mother! How can you treat me like this for a total stranger?!"

Nicola rolled her eyes. "Jason, hold her still."

My own son pinned me against the wall. Nicola reached for my ear and pulled.

She didn't unhook the clasp. She just yanked.

A sharp, searing pain ripped through my earlobe as the metal tore right through the flesh. Warm blood instantly spilled down my neck.

"Ah!" Carol shrieked, backing away. "She's bleeding!"

Nicola looked at the torn flesh and the blood dripping onto my collar. Her expression remained completely flat. "It's her own fault for fighting back."

Richard frowned, his eyes flicking to the blood on my neck, but he didn't say a single word. He didn't step forward.

I pressed my trembling hand to my torn, throbbing ear. The physical pain was nothing compared to the violent rupture in my chest. Tears finally spilled over my eyelashes.

I looked at the four faces staring back at me.

"I gave birth to you," my voice was barely a whisper, fracturing under the weight of the betrayal. "I gave up my life for you... and this is what I am to you?"