Lack of Love? Not on my part. I loved her with all my heart and soul! Had she fallen out of love with me somewhere along the way? Hell, we’d just been talking about starting a family a week ago!
She interrupted my reverie by pushing the dreaded manila envelope across the kitchen table to me as I sat down.
“Maggie, please tell me this isn’t what I think it is.” I looked at her, and her face was a studied mask that betrayed nothing.
“I’m sorry, Mac.” She said softly. “I should have talked to you before, but I want a divorce.”
“Why?” I asked with far more calm in my voice than I was feeling at that moment.
“It’s complicated.” She hedged, looking away.
“You met someone else.” I must have been in shock, since I still hadn’t flown into a rage.
“Yes.” She said even more softly, barely whispering.
“How long?” I asked. God, what was wrong with me?! I should have been standing and seething, pacing back and forth as I called her everything but a Child of God. I should have been threatening the Asshole for whom she was trading me in! I should have felt something other than total numbness!
“8 months.” She said.
I closed my eyes. “8 months.” I repeated. “You’ve been cheating on me for 8 fuckin’ months, and the first I hear about it is that you want a Divorce.” I shrugged. “I suppose you’re going to take me to the cleaners in court. Since Alienation of Affection isn’t looked kindly upon here in California, I’m left with very little recourse, here.”
“No, Mac.” She said as she shook her head slowly. “Your business is yours. Not mine. The house is mine by inheritance from my grandparents, but I will give you a few days to vacate. After you’ve found your own place, of course. I’ll be seeking marginal alimony for a while, until I remarry. Nothing bank breaking, though.
I sighed. “Do I know him?” I asked at length.
“If you harm him in any way, you’ll end up in jail.” She said unnecessarily. Not that I didn’t want to fuck him up, but I didn’t want to lose my business, either.
“I know that. I think I have a right to know who’s been horning me for the past 8 months, though.” I shrugged.
“Reginald Pennington.” She said, holding her head up straight. Son of a bitch! That, friends, was bombshell #2. I HATED him already, even before this.
Ok, now I was fuckin’ angry! I closed my eyes and took deep breaths to calm myself. Reginald FUCKHEAD Pennington. Blonde, blue eyed, mega-rich from Old Money, Hitler’s ideal for the “master race”, you name it. Oh, and ultra-snobby with a racist bigoted streak a mile wide, too.
I had warned Maggie about him after we had dinner with him to discuss some of the charities we were all involved with at the time. She’d laughed off my warning and told me he was harmless. Yeah, right! Harmless like a fuckin’ rattlesnake!
We’d met him at a charity event in our community, and even then I didn’t like the way he’d been looking at Maggie. He looked at me with disdain, and looked at her with pure lust in his eyes.
My anger barely under control, I finally managed to look Maggie in the eyes again. “Well, I guess there isn’t much I can do about it, then.” I shrugged as nonchalantly as I could.