for her. The sound of clinking ice in a glass fills my ears and I can’t help but chuckle. I won’t miss that. Her drinking, her constant fucking drinking.
“Susan?” I call out.
“I’m here,” she says, her voice already slurred.
I wonder if it’s just permanently like that now? Like she doesn’t know how to be sober anymore? Probably.
Walking toward her voice, I’m not surprised to find her in my study, or what is left of my study. She’s made it a lounging room. Where my books were once neatly placed on the shelves there are now knickknacks and odds and ends. The walls are also painted pink and the carpeting is leopard print. My desk is gone, replaced with a lacquer black one, and a zebra print chair sits behind it.
“So, you’ve decided to come early for your weekend visitation?” she asks, lounging on her black chaise, a drink properly in hand.
“I would like to talk to you, Susan,” I begin.
She sits up slightly, attempting to balance her drink, but it sloshes out a bit. If she notices, she doesn’t react to any of it. Her eyes find mine, her lids are lowered, but that’s most likely because she’s on the verge of passing out and not because she’s attempting to seduce me.
Walking over to her desk, I lean against the front of it, my manila folder still in hand. “Are you happy?” I ask.
She narrows her gaze, shrugging a shoulder. “Why?” she snaps.
“We don’t live together, we don’t sleep together, and I know you have men that you enjoy when I’m not around. Why are we married?”
She snorts. “This again? Landry, please. We’re too old to leave one another. There’s no reason. The children are grown, soon we’ll be grandparents. It’s ridiculous to think that we’ll somehow find love at our age. Have your fun, as I have mine, and when the fun is over, we’ll have companionship when we’re too feeble to do anything else.”
Her words, a year ago, even a few months ago would have been enough for me to blindly agree and drop the topic. But not anymore. I drew up this paperwork for a reason. I’m not going to back down from it either.
I want this.
Maybe it’s a mistake, maybe it’s too late for me to find a bit of happiness, but I know that I’m too old to live a life this miserable and lonely.
Pushing off of the desk, I take a couple steps toward her. “It’s over, Susan. I will always love you for being the mother to our children, but what we had, it died a long time ago.”
“No,” she snaps, turning her head to the side.
“No?”
She lifts her chin, refusing to look at me. Tossing the envelope next to her on the chaise, I take a step back. She suddenly turns to me, her eyes almost wild as she sneers. The doorbell sounds and I know that it is the constable to serve the initial paperwork.
Susan stands, her body swaying and swerving as she attempts to walk toward the door. I hear her open it, then a deep voice informs her that she’s been served. The heavy door doesn’t slam, but Susan’s heels stomp back toward me, clicking loudly with each step that she takes.
“Who is she?” she demands on a shrill shout.
“She?” I ask.
Susan’s body sways where she stands, the unopened papers in her hand, her cocktail in the other.
“Yes. Who is the whore you’re fucking? That’s what this is, right? We’ve been living a nice, separate life for years. Don’t deny that you haven’t had your fun, you’re a man, and if I remember correctly, you enjoyed sex more than most men.”
“There is nobody else. We don’t need to discuss this. We both have our transgressions. It will do nothing but hurt one another if we list our dalliances.”
She snorts, lifting her martini glass, waving it around. The vodka sloshes out of the glass and onto the leopard print carpeting. I know tomorrow the maid will no doubt have to shampoo the stain from the rug, more work for her, but Susan doesn’t care about that.
She takes a step forward. “You stopped sleeping with me. You stopped coming home. All your time at the office was no doubt with some secretary. You think that I don’t know,” she sneers.
Shaking my head, I lift my hand and run my fingers through my hair. “There was nobody, not back then, not until after.”
“After?”
“After I saw the pictures of you fucking your tennis