Part 2: The Betrayal Signature
Three weeks later, we closed on the house.
We stood in the vast, empty foyer of the brownstone. The ceilings were impossibly high, and our voices echoed off the gleaming, newly polished hardwood floors. The smell of fresh, expensive, low-VOC paint was sharp and clean. David held the new, heavy brass keys, jangling them on his finger with a proprietary air, a king surveying his newly conquered kingdom.
“Finally,” he said, taking a deep, satisfied breath, as if he had built this house with his own two hands. “Stability. A home worthy of a man of my stature.”
I smiled, my own perfect, practiced smile, the final smile of the character I had been playing for so long. “I’m so happy for us, David. This is a dream come true.”
He turned to me, but his smile, the one that had been so cloyingly sweet for the past three weeks, was gone. It was replaced by a cold, dismissive smirk. “Right,” he said. “For ME.”
He tossed a different stack of papers onto the gleaming granite of the kitchen island. They were thick, legal-looking, and they skidded to a stop right in front of me. The top page read, “Petition for Dissolution of Marriage.”
“Sign the divorce papers, Clara.”
