My mother-in-law told my husband to “divorce that useless woman” while I stood outside our door holding his favorite beer and an envelope worth approximately $1 billion. I had come home ready to share everything. Then I heard his answer—and realized I needed to understand what my uncle had left me before either of them learned a thing…
My mother-in-law told my husband to “divorce that useless woman” while I stood outside our door holding his favorite beer and an envelope worth approximately $1 billion. I had come home ready to share everything. Then I heard his answer—and realized I needed to understand what my uncle had left me before either of them learned a thing…
My key was halfway to the lock when I heard Shirley say, “You need to hurry up and divorce that useless woman.”
I stopped with the grocery bag against my leg. Inside were Simon’s favorite craft beer and the expensive deli sides I usually talked myself out of buying. In my purse was a brown envelope containing the reason I had decided we could celebrate.
My uncle Samuel had left me an estate estimated at $1 billion.
I had been rehearsing how to tell my husband all the way home. Now I stood outside our apartment waiting to hear whether he would tell his mother she had gone too far.
That afternoon, I had sat across from Attorney Thomas in a conference room in downtown Manhattan. My mother’s older brother had died at seventy-four near the end of June. He had never married or had children, but he had always made time for me.
When I was little, summer visits meant going somewhere good for lunch and being asked what I wanted to do afterward. As an adult, I saw him only a few times a year. I knew he had done well in business. I had no idea what that meant.
Thomas turned an estate inventory toward me. There were company shares, commercial properties in Manhattan and Boston, investment accounts, and bank balances. I reached the estimated total and counted the digits twice.
“Is that really a billion dollars?”
“Yes. But it’s a preliminary valuation, Natalie.”
He explained that most of it was tied up in property and the company my uncle had built. There were taxes, debts, valuations, and months of administration ahead. I was not being handed a billion dollars to spend.
Oddly, that helped. A number that large was impossible to understand, but paperwork and obligations were things I could recognize.
“You don’t have to handle this alone,” Thomas told me.
I thanked him, put the inventory into its brown envelope, and left thinking about Simon. My husband understood business. He was more confident than I was in meetings and never seemed embarrassed to ask for what he wanted. Surely we could work through this together.
On the subway, I thought about our mortgage. At the grocery store, I chose his favorite beer. By the time I reached our building, I wanted nothing more than to sit across from him and say, “You’re not going to believe what happened today.”
Then I heard his mother.
Shirley lived about ten minutes away and visited several times a week without calling. We had never given her a key, but she knew when Simon got home. At first, standing on the landing, I was merely disappointed that I would have to wait to tell him privately.
“Simon, how long are you going to keep living like this?” she asked.
His answer was too quiet to make out.
“She’s almost forty, and all she does is tinker with spreadsheets at home. No children. Hardly any money coming in.”
I looked down at the grocery bag handles cutting into my fingers.
We had moved because of Simon’s job transfer and his father’s declining health. Simon wanted to be near his parents. I had left my corporate job and started freelance bookkeeping so I could contribute while having the flexibility to help.
I earned less than before. I had accepted that tradeoff. I had never agreed that it made my work meaningless.
Then came the sentence that stopped my hand at the lock.
“You need to hurry up and divorce that useless woman.”
I waited for Simon to say my name. To say I worked hard. To say she could dislike my choices without speaking about his wife that way.
“Mom, stop talking about this right now.”
Right now.
“Why? Am I wrong?”
“I’m not saying that, but—”
“Are you going to divorce her or not?”
The hallway was warm, but my hands felt cold.
“I’m not thinking about it right now,” he said.
I stared at our door. I had been on the other side of it that morning, rinsing breakfast dishes and checking invoices before leaving for the attorney’s office. Nothing about the apartment had seemed different then.
I took one step backward, then another, and went down the stairs. Outside, I stood long enough to breathe without making a sound. I could not walk in holding that envelope and pretend I still knew what sharing it would mean.
When I returned upstairs, I made sure they could hear my footsteps. I let my keys rattle, opened the door, and called, “I’m home.”
Their conversation stopped.
Simon stood when I entered the living room. Shirley remained on the sofa, looking comfortable.
“You’re late,” she said.
“I had errands.”
“Must be nice, working from home. So flexible.”
I carried the food into the kitchen. Simon looked at the television while his mother explained that working outside the home was considerably harder. He offered no correction.
I transferred the deli sides to plates and put the beer in front of him. Until that evening, I had often mistaken his silence for an effort to remain neutral. Now I could see who paid for that arrangement.
“Something good happen today?” he asked during dinner.
“Why?”
“You seem cheerful.”
I kept my eyes on my plate. “I found some things at the store.”
He smiled and took a drink. He needed so little reassurance from me that he did not notice I had answered a different question.
Shirley stayed until after nine. When she finally left, Simon stretched out on the sofa.
“She’s been coming over too much lately,” he said. “Must be tiring for you, too. Just brush off whatever she says.”
I opened my laptop. The envelope stayed in my bag.
“You’re still working?”
“Month-end. A few things to check.”
“Don’t overdo it. It’s not like it brings in that much anyway.”
I looked at the rows of figures on my screen until they stopped making sense. He returned to the television. A few hours earlier, I had thought the two of us would be discussing how to manage an unimaginable responsibility. Instead, I was pretending to work because I no longer knew how to speak to him.
After ten, I closed the laptop and made two glasses of iced tea. I set his on the coffee table and sat on a cushion away from the sofa.
“Simon, can I ask you something?”
He glanced up from his phone.
“Have you ever thought about divorcing me?”
His thumb stopped moving. He placed the phone facedown, then traced the condensation on his glass.
“Where is this coming from?”
“Have you?”
“Don’t worry about things like that.”
I waited.
Finally, he scratched the back of his head. “My mom’s been saying things for a while. About you being home and not making much. It gets exhausting listening to it.”
He looked at me, apparently expecting sympathy. I kept both hands around my glass.
“So, yes,” he said. “I’ve thought maybe things would be easier if we split up.”
The envelope was only a few feet away. I left it there.
“What would become easier?”
Part 2…..
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Simon looked surprised that I needed him to explain.
“I wouldn’t have to argue with my mom all the time. I wouldn’t be caught in the middle.”
I set my glass on the table before I answered.
“So when your mother insults me, the solution you consider is getting rid of me.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“You just said it.”
“I’ve never said anything bad about you.”
“But you haven’t asked her to stop.”
He leaned back and rubbed his face. “She doesn’t mean any harm. She worries.”
I had heard that explanation after comments about my work, inspections of my refrigerator, and weekends rearranged without anyone asking me. Somehow, her intentions always mattered more than what she actually did.
“What part of this am I supposed to find reassuring?”
He had no answer. When I stood, he reached for a gentler tone.
“Come on, Natalie. I don’t actually want a divorce.”
“Then I wish you hadn’t treated it like an easy solution.”
I washed my glass, took a spare pillow and blanket from the bedroom, and carried them into my office. Simon followed me as far as the hallway.
“You’re sleeping in there?”
“I want to be alone.”
He did not follow when I closed the door.
On the floor beside my desk, I took the brown envelope out of my bag. That afternoon, it had represented things we might do together. Now I needed to understand it before giving Simon the opportunity to explain why he should take charge.
I slept badly. In the morning, my back hurt, and Simon was annoyed.
“You really stayed in there?”
“Yes.”
He asked for coffee, checked his phone while I made it, then reminded me that I could sleep later because I did not have a commute. He left before I had decided what to say.
I returned to the work he considered so unimportant. Several small businesses depended on me to reconcile accounts, process invoices, and catch expenses entered incorrectly. At month-end, I sometimes worked until midnight.
My income had fallen after the move. That was true. But the reason for the move had disappeared from Simon and Shirley’s version of events. They saw a woman at home earning less, without remembering why I was there.
That afternoon, I called Thomas’s office for another appointment.
Simon came home with a bakery box.
“About last night,” he said, loosening his tie. “Mom didn’t mean anything, and I’m not leaving you. Don’t worry.”
I put the cake in the refrigerator.
“I’m not worried.”
His relief was immediate. He went to the sofa, satisfied that he had fixed the problem. I went back to the office to prepare questions for the attorney.
The next afternoon, Thomas had a tax accountant join us. They spread documents across the conference table, and this time I asked them to slow down.
The largest portion of the estate consisted of shares in Samuel’s logistics company. The executives knew how to run the business. As the principal shareholder, I would have responsibilities concerning its direction, but inheriting it did not require me to become an industry expert overnight.
The buildings had loans, leases, tenants, and maintenance needs. The estate tax obligations would require careful planning. A property’s estimated value was not money sitting in an account waiting to be withdrawn.
I wrote questions in the margins.
“What decisions need to happen soon? Which ones can wait? And which valuations are still preliminary?”
For nearly two hours, I listened and asked again when I did not understand. Nobody seemed irritated. Nobody suggested that my uncertainty disqualified me from learning.
“This feels more manageable than being told I have a billion dollars,” I admitted.
Thomas nodded. “Your uncle left you responsibilities as well as assets.”
I left with a thicker folder and a much clearer sense of what I needed to do.
That evening, Simon praised the meatloaf and told me stories from work. I recognized the effort. I also noticed that he had not asked why I was still sleeping in the office.
After dinner, I placed the envelope on the coffee table.
“I need to talk to you.”
“If this is about the other night, I already said—”
“It’s about my uncle’s estate.”
He picked up his beer. “How much did he leave?”
I slid the inventory toward him.
At first, he barely looked. Then his eyes reached the bottom of the page. The glass stopped halfway to his mouth.
“Are there too many zeros here?”
“I asked the same thing.”
He set down the beer and counted with one finger. He reached the end, went back, and counted again.
“A billion?”
“Approximately. Before the estate obligations are settled. Most of it isn’t cash.”
“But you’re inheriting all this?”
“Yes.”
He held the page with both hands.
“We’d never have to work again.”
I waited for him to ask how I felt about Samuel, whether the meeting had overwhelmed me, or what help I actually needed. Instead, he went back to the number.
I repeated what Thomas had explained. Simon nodded quickly, but I could tell he was already moving past the qualifications.
The following morning, he offered to make coffee.
He also suggested I could take time off from my “little tasks.” It was a different tone wrapped around the same judgment. The work had not become more worthy of respect; he simply believed it was no longer necessary.
I continued it anyway. My clients still needed their books completed, and the income was money I had earned. I did not want the first consequence of inheriting Samuel’s estate to be abandoning something I knew how to do.
That evening, Shirley arrived with a gift basket.
She smiled before I had fully opened the door. Fruit and cheese filled the expensive wrapping, and she told me an acquaintance had given it to her.
“You like these things, don’t you, Natalie?”
I could not remember the last time she had sounded so concerned about my preferences.
Over iced tea, she looked around the apartment.
“It is cramped in here. A nice condo with proper security would be better.”
“We haven’t finished valuing the estate.”
“Of course. Still, it must be overwhelming. You should let Simon handle it.”
“Handle what?”
“The management. Men understand these things.”
Simon arrived at six-thirty, much earlier than usual. When Shirley repeated her proposal, he raised both hands.
“Mom, we’re not at that stage yet.”
He did not tell her there would be no such stage.
After she left, he said her idea was worth considering. He could become the point of contact for the attorney and accountant. He could keep track of the complicated parts.
“I need to hear their explanations myself,” I said. “I have qualified people helping me.”
His smile thinned.
“We’re married, Natalie. You don’t have to do everything alone.”
“I’m not doing it alone. I’m doing it with the people who understand the estate.”
That weekend, he showed me a listing for a two-million-dollar penthouse.
“Compared with a billion, it’s practically nothing.”
I reminded him that valuations were not cash balances. He moved on to our apartment’s remaining mortgage, approximately two hundred thousand dollars.
“If we paid that off, I could do more with my salary.”
Then he suggested buying Shirley a condo. Her house had steep stairs, he said. It was cold in winter. A secure building would give everyone peace of mind.
I looked at the phone he was holding out to me.
“Whose money would pay for that?”
“The inheritance.”
“My inheritance.”
He lowered the phone. “We’re married. It’s family money.”
When my earnings had been small, he spoke of them as proof that I contributed too little. Now that the amount was large, the distinction between mine and ours had apparently become offensive.
“No purchases until the professionals finish their work,” I said.
He accused me of shutting down every conversation. By evening, he had found another proposal: a college friend expanding a business and looking for investors.
“If I invested, there might even be a board position.”
I closed the refrigerator and turned toward him.
“You mean if I invested.”
He waved away the distinction. He was making plans, he said. Thinking ahead. Trying to help.
I went back to my office.
The next Wednesday, Thomas introduced me to Mr. Miller, the logistics company’s managing director. He spoke about Samuel with affection and described the company’s operations without assuming I already understood them.
When we reviewed the financial statements, I asked about depreciation and its difference from an actual cash outflow.
“That’s right,” Miller said. “You have a good grounding in the numbers.”
It was a small comment. I carried it home with me anyway.
The work my family mocked had given me a place to begin. I did not understand everything, but I was not starting from nothing.
That night, Simon reached for the statements.
“Let me check those.”
I covered the pages.
“They contain confidential company information. I’m not handing them around.”
“I’m your husband.”
“And I need to understand my responsibilities as a shareholder.”
He pulled back his hand.
“You’ve changed. You don’t listen to anything I say anymore.”
I placed the documents in their folder. “I listened. I didn’t agree.”
He went into the bedroom and closed the door.
A few days later, Thomas called while I was working. His voice was measured.
“Your mother-in-law contacted the office this morning.”
I stopped writing.
“She asked us to provide your financial information to Simon.”
I knew before he answered my next question that he had refused. Still, I needed to hear it.
“Nothing was shared,” he assured me. “I wanted you to know she had made the request.”
I thanked him and remained at my desk after the call ended.
Shirley had never received his contact information from me. Simon had seen the business card with the inventory. That evening, I waited for him at the table instead of warming dinner.
“Did you give your mother Thomas’s card?”
He looked toward the kitchen, then back at me.
“Yes. Why?”
“Without asking me?”
“She’s worried you’ll get taken advantage of.”
“She called him and asked for my financial information to be sent to you.”
His expression changed. He had not known she would actually call. For a moment, I thought that might make him recognize the problem.
Then he said, “She just wanted me to understand what was happening.”
“Why didn’t she ask me?”
“She didn’t mean any harm.”
I folded my hands on the table.
“You keep telling me what she meant. I’m telling you what she did.”
He raised his voice. I was keeping secrets. Treating them like enemies. Becoming suspicious because of the money. When I refused to argue about my tone, he struck the table with his palm and stood.
“We’re supposed to manage things together.”
“You’ve already planned a home for your mother and an investment that might get you a board seat. You’re not asking what I want.”
He stared at me, then told me to call Shirley and apologize for the misunderstanding.
“No.”
He blinked.
“I haven’t done anything wrong, Simon. I’m not apologizing.”
I went into my office while he was still trying to make the refusal into a new offense.
That Friday, after we finished reviewing documents related to the company shares, Thomas took a small wooden box from a cabinet.
“Samuel left something personal for you. He asked me to give it to you after we had explained the estate.”
Inside was a white envelope with my name in my uncle’s handwriting.
I took it to a quiet coffee shop near the station. I ordered tea, chose a corner booth, and carefully unfolded three pages.
The first sentence made me laugh.
“Natalie, you have always said ‘whatever is fine’ too much.”
I could hear him asking what I wanted for lunch during those childhood visits. I had always looked at the adults first, trying to identify the answer that would inconvenience nobody.
Samuel noticed.
In the letter, he told me that accommodating people could be a kindness. But if I did it every time, I would eventually forget which parts of my life I had chosen.
I stopped reading and looked out the window.
The move. Leaving my job. Shopping trips with Shirley when I wanted to rest. Working late to make up a shortfall while never asking Simon to reduce his spending.
I had agreed to those things. Some had been reasonable compromises. But I had stopped checking whether agreement was still what I wanted.
On the next page, Samuel wrote about the estate.
He knew its size would frighten me. He knew the company and properties would require explanations. And he warned me that money did not automatically make a person free.
“If you don’t practice making decisions, other people will be happy to make them for you.”
I placed my tea back on its saucer.
He told me to seek advice, ask questions, and hire people who knew what I did not. Delegating work was sensible. Surrendering my life to somebody else’s judgment was another matter.
The last line was simple.
“Natalie, I believe you can do this.”
I pressed a handkerchief against my eyes and waited until I could fold the pages without shaking. For weeks, I had been hearing that I was incapable, unreasonable, or changed. Here was someone who had known my limitations and trusted me anyway.
I put the letter away carefully.
By mid-July, I was spending more time studying estate documents and less time interpreting Simon’s moods. Eventually, he abandoned the silence and tried a softer approach.
He sat across from me one night while I drank tea.
“You look exhausted. Let me deal with the lawyers.”
“I’m making progress.”
“You’ve never been good at negotiations. I could take some of this off your plate.”
“Thank you, but I need to do it myself.”
His expression changed.
“You can’t expect to understand real estate valuations just because you do bookkeeping.”
“I don’t understand them yet. That’s why I’m asking questions.”
He pushed back from the table.
“Do you trust me that little?”
For a moment, I almost answered the old way. Almost reassured him until he felt comfortable again.
Then I thought about Samuel’s letter.
“I trusted you enough to stop making decisions for myself,” I said. “Where we lived. How we spent weekends. What happened when your mother insulted me. I thought letting you decide meant I was being a good partner.”
“That isn’t fair.”
“Trusting you shouldn’t require me to stop thinking.”
He went to the sofa and covered his face with his hands. I waited. The air conditioner hummed, and neither of us reached for the television remote.
Finally, he said, “I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
He stared at the floor.
“If you have that kind of money, you won’t need me.”
I had been prepared to hear another argument about shared assets. I was not prepared for how young he sounded.
There had been greed in the penthouse listings and investment proposals. But there was something else, too. He had felt secure when he earned more, knew more, and could assume I would eventually yield.
“Why does making my own decisions mean I don’t need a husband?”
He shook his head but did not answer.
I could understand his fear without agreeing to make myself smaller to ease it.
“I made mistakes, too,” I said.
He looked up.
“I said things were fine when they weren’t. I should have told you how much I resented giving up my job. I should have objected when your mother treated my time as hers.”
I described the weekends I wanted to rest, the comments I swallowed, the nights I stayed at my desk because the bills needed paying.
“That doesn’t make the way you treated me my fault. But I have to stop agreeing to things just because I’m afraid of an argument.”
He listened without interrupting.
“I kept calling it peace,” I said. “But you were comfortable, and I was disappearing.”
He started to answer, then stopped.
For once, I did not rescue him from the silence. I had said what I needed to say. Nothing he offered that evening changed the fact that he considered my independence a threat to his place in our marriage.
Two weeks later, in early August, I was ready to leave.
I had consulted Thomas and rented a short-term apartment in the city. My own savings covered the move and immediate living expenses. I had not needed to touch the inheritance.
On Saturday afternoon, I rolled a suitcase out of the bedroom.
Simon looked away from the television.
“Where are you going?”
I placed the divorce papers on the table.
“I’m moving out. I’ve signed what I need to sign. The rest can be handled through the attorneys.”
He looked from the documents to the suitcase.
“You’re serious?”
“Yes.”
He refused to sign. I told him that would not make me stay; we could address the unresolved matters through the appropriate process.
His first call was to his mother.
She arrived in less than ten minutes, her attention going immediately to the luggage.
“I won’t allow this.”
“You don’t have to approve it.”
“Marriage means supporting each other. You can’t abandon your family over a misunderstanding.”
I let go of the suitcase handle.
“Did you believe that before you knew about the inheritance?”
“Of course I did.”
“I was useless a few weeks ago.”
Both of them went still.
Until then, neither knew I had heard the conversation outside our door. Simon looked at me. Shirley opened her mouth, but I continued before she could interrupt.
“Almost forty. No children. Tinkering with spreadsheets. Hardly any money. You told him to hurry up and divorce me.”
“I was irritated,” she said. “It was a figure of speech.”
“Does a billion dollars change what the words meant?”
Her face tightened. She reminded me how much Simon had provided, called me ungrateful, and asked what kind of woman walked away from her family because she suddenly had money.
I looked down at the suitcase handle. I had expected the insults. I was tired of hearing the same ones delivered as new arguments.
“Mom, stop.”
Simon’s voice was quiet.
Shirley turned toward him.
“Don’t say anything else to Natalie,” he said. “We were wrong.”
I looked at my husband.
There it was, finally: a clear line between his mother’s anger and his wife. He was not asking me to endure it. He was asking her to stop.
I had wanted that for years.
“Thank you,” I said. “That’s the first time you’ve done that.”
His expression changed, and I knew he hoped the moment might alter my decision. I wished it could have mattered sooner. I could acknowledge it now without promising him another chance to repeat everything that had come before it.
I placed my apartment key on the table.
“Goodbye, Simon.”
Neither followed me out.
At the short-term apartment, I unpacked my work equipment before anything else. Soon my days were filled with meetings at Thomas’s office and the company.
There were difficult choices about taxes and assets, questions about property valuations, and unfamiliar terms that required repeated explanations. I asked for those explanations. When necessary, Thomas introduced an independent appraiser so I could hear another professional’s assessment.
I did not become president of the logistics company.
Miller and the other executives knew the operation. I did not. I told them I intended to take ownership seriously while leaving day-to-day management to the people qualified to handle it.
Miller looked relieved.
Learning to make decisions included learning which work belonged with someone else. I could delegate without pretending my signature meant I understood every part of their business.
The divorce proceeded through attorneys. Simon resisted at first, then began cooperating when he understood I was prepared to continue without his approval. Shirley attempted to force contact at my new apartment, but Thomas’s warnings kept me from having to confront her in person.
The inherited estate remained separate in our settlement. We divided our joint savings and the equity in the apartment. There was no grand public scene over the money, just documents, questions, and the slow dismantling of a shared household.
By late October, the divorce was finalized.
That afternoon, Simon and I met at a coffee shop near the station to finish the remaining administrative details. His suit was wrinkled, and he looked tired. We went through utility information and the last account changes without arguing.
I was gathering the papers when he stopped me.
“If you hadn’t inherited it,” he asked, “would we still be married?”
I stayed seated.
There was an answer that would have sounded strong and certain. But he had asked something more difficult than that.
“Probably,” I said.
He gave a bitter little laugh.
“Money ruins people.”
“No, Simon.”
“You got it, and everything changed.”
“The money made it harder to ignore what was already happening.”
He looked down at his cup.
“I might have kept accepting it,” I continued. “That doesn’t mean it was a good marriage. It means I might have stayed.”
He did not answer.
“You didn’t start dismissing me after the inheritance. Your mother didn’t start insulting me after it. What changed was that I stopped explaining it away.”
I was not asking him to agree so I could feel certain. I had already left. I wanted to answer honestly without letting him turn the estate into the person responsible for our choices.
I picked up the check.
“Take care of yourself.”
Outside, the autumn air felt good after the warm café. My phone buzzed with a message from Thomas confirming that the paperwork was complete and reminding me of the next day’s meeting.
There was still work to do. I liked knowing what it was.
A year after the divorce, I sat in a rented boardroom in Boston discussing a forty-year-old commercial building Samuel had left me.
The property management representative presented two options: a substantial renovation or a sale in its current condition, with consequences for the existing tenants that also had to be considered. He moved through projections while the others followed along.
“Can we go back one page?” I asked.
He turned the page.
“This yield calculation. Walk me through the assumptions again.”
He did.
I asked more questions. Some concerned the building; others concerned nearby redevelopment plans that remained uncertain. I did not apologize for taking time, and nobody suggested I should.
After an hour, the representative asked whether we should proceed with the renovation.
“Not yet,” I said. “I want another six months to watch the market, the redevelopment plans, and the tenants’ situation before committing.”
We discussed that approach, and the meeting ended with further work to be done rather than a decision made simply because everyone had assembled in the same room.
While I packed my bag, the representative asked whether I also consulted family on major choices.
For a second, I remembered the brown envelope against my side and Simon telling his mother he was not considering divorce right now.
“I consult people with the right expertise,” I said. “Then I make the decision.”
He nodded.
“Of course.”
No argument. No wounded pride. He treated my answer as ordinary.
Outside, leaves moved along the sidewalk. I still had plenty to learn, and I knew I would eventually make a choice I regretted. Owning significant assets had not made me incapable of error.
It had given me more reasons to ask good questions.
Samuel’s letter was no longer an instruction I read when I needed courage. I was beginning to recognize it in things I did without thinking: asking someone to slow down, refusing to sign until I understood, choosing a capable person for a task without handing them every other choice in my life.
On the way to the station, my mother texted.
How about lunch Sunday?
My first impulse was the old one: Whatever works for you.
Instead, I opened my calendar. The week had been full of meetings, and I wanted Sunday at home. Saturday afternoon was open, and I did want to see my parents.
I typed, I’d like to rest on Sunday. Could we do Saturday instead?
Her answer arrived within seconds.
Of course. Saturday works.
I stood on the sidewalk looking at those four words.
I had stated a preference. Someone who loved me had accepted it. There was no punishment to prepare for, no disappointed silence to repair.
I put my phone away and continued toward the station.
Saturday would be lunch with my parents.
Sunday would be mine.
THE END.
