Page 21 of Absolution (Infidelty #3)

Jackie

I was wrong.

I expected Kyle to drag it out. To make me fight for every dollar. But he doesn’t.

He gives me everything I ask for, the house, alimony until I get a job, child support even though we agreed on fifty-fifty custody. He doesn’t contest anything. Just hands it over.

The lawyers handled it all in record time. My attorney, Jeremy, looked almost disappointed, like he’d prepared for a battle that never came. You’d think I would be too. After all, I spent weeks building that folder, piece by damning piece. Every receipt, every email, every late-night charge like a brick in a wall of proof. I pieced it together like a war strategy.

And it stayed untouched.

He never even asked what I had.

Part of me wanted to throw it in his face, make him look at it, make him feel it. But another part, the quieter part, was relieved. Maybe I’d already won the moment I stopped needing him to lose.

Kyle’s been sleeping on the sofa in his home office. The kids have noticed something’s off, but they haven’t said much. Just those quiet glances they trade when we’re in the same room. We agreed not to tell them anything until everything was finalized. And now that it is, it’s time for the conversation I’ve been dreading most.

We picked Friday after school, so they’d have two days to process it before going back to school. Kyle isn’t moving out until Sunday.

The only thing he asked for in the divorce was time. He didn’t want to tell the kids he cheated. Not yet. He promised he would, just not now. We agreed we wouldn’t blame each other in front of them. That they didn’t need to carry our anger.

And strangely… I believe him.

I don’t know what changed, if it’s the therapy or if it finally hit him that I wasn’t going to stay just to play out the same story his parents did. I’m not his mother. I wasn’t going to rot quietly in a marriage while he withered beside me.

But Kyle’s different now.

Not magically healed. Not someone I want to fall back in love with. Just… different. More aware. More humble. Like he finally saw the wreckage he caused and didn’t look away.

We decide to sit the kids down in the living room. They’re all on the sofa, side by side, a tangle of knees and elbows, Jemma and Iris leaning just slightly into Levi like they always do when they’re unsure.

Kyle and I move the armchairs, dragging them to face the couch directly. United, even while separating.

We sit, shoulder to shoulder. The space between us tight but charged.

The silence stretches for a moment. I glance at Kyle. He gives me a small nod. So, I begin.

“We wanted to talk to you together,”

I say carefully.

“because this is important, and we didn’t want either of us to be the only one to say it.”

Jemma tilts her head.

“Are we in trouble?”

Kyle gives a soft smile.

“No, sweetheart. You’re not in trouble.”

I take a breath.

“Your dad and I… we’ve decided we’re going to get a divorce.”

There’s a pause. That strange kind of stillness that only comes when something you half-feared, half-never-believed would happen suddenly does.

Iris immediately curls in on herself, knees to chest, blinking fast. Jemma just stares at me, her mouth parted.

Levi speaks first. His voice is quiet.

“Is that why dad’s been sleeping in his office.”

My throat catches. He looks older than twelve when he says it. Like he's been bracing for this. Kyle nods.

“But…”

he continues, voice tightening.

“Can’t you just try again?”

Kyle shifts forward, elbows on knees.

“We did try, bud. We tried for a long time. And we still care about each other, just not the same way.”

Jemma frowns.

“So, we won’t all live in the same house anymore?”

I shake my head.

“Not all the time. But you’ll still see us both, all the time. That’s not changing.”

“We’re not going anywhere,”

Kyle says firmly.

“We’ll still be your parents. Always.”

Iris speaks, lips trembling.

“We’re not a family anymore.”

I reach for her hand.

“We will always be a family,”

I say honestly.

“It’s just changing shape.”

Jemma blinks hard.

“So… what happens now?”

“We’ll still be your parents,”

Kyle says.

“We’ll still both be around. We’ve worked out a schedule so you’ll have time with each of us. You won’t be losing anyone.”

“But you won’t live together anymore,”

Iris says, voice small.

Kyle nods.

“Right. I’ll be moving out on Sunday.”

“Why Jemma asks quickly.

“Did we do something?”

“No, honey,”

I say.

“Not even a little bit. This isn’t your fault. None of this is.”

Levi’s jaw tightens. I can see it, how hard he’s trying to hold it in, the pressure building under his skin. His fists clench on his lap, knuckles going white.

“So that’s it?”

he snaps suddenly.

“You’re just giving up?”

“Levi,”

Kyle says gently.

“it’s more complicated than that-”

“No, it’s not!”

he says, shooting up from the couch.

“You said you love each other. You said we’re still a family. But families don’t quit! They don’t…”

His voice cracks.

“They don’t just leave.”

Jemma flinches. Iris starts crying, quiet, hiccupping sobs.

Levi’s breathing hard now.

“You could try harder. You just don’t want to.”

He bolts up the stairs before anyone can stop him, his footsteps loud, each one landing like a punch. Jemma follows, pale and wide-eyed, wrapping an arm around Iris as they go.

The silence they leave behind is worse than the shouting.

I press my palm to my mouth, the weight of it all suddenly unbearable. I don’t mean to cry, but it comes anyway. Quiet and sharp. A sound I can’t quite swallow.

Kyle shifts closer, reaching for my hand. I let him take it.

“We’re doing the right thing,”

he says softly, like he’s trying to convince himself as much as me.

“They’ll understand eventually.”

I nod, but I can’t speak. I don’t feel brave. I don’t feel sure. I feel like I’ve just broken the only thing I ever truly got right.

Kyle squeezes my hand once more, then lets go.

“We’ll get through this, Jackie,”

he murmurs.

“All of us. One way or another.”

I wipe my tears with the back of my hand, swallowing hard.

“How’s the apartment?”

I ask, my voice thin.

He hesitates.

“It’s… fine.”

That pause tells me everything. He’s trying not to make it harder.

Kyle found a place about ten minutes away.

A four-bedroom on the second floor of a quiet building, close to the kids’ school and on a direct bus route.

Practical.

Safe.

Close enough that pickups won’t be a nightmare and far enough that we’ll have the space we need.

At first, I considered nesting, the kind of setup where the kids stay in the house and Kyle and I would take turns living here.

But when Jeremy, my lawyer, gently pointed out that it would only delay the real separation and that Kyle was unusually agreeable right now, I reconsidered.

“Finalize the house while he’s feeling generous,”

he’d said with a small shrug.

“Before the guilt fades or his parents get involved.”

He’s right.

I don’t want the added weight of his mother’s judgment or his father’s not-so-silent jabs complicating what’s already unbearable.

And I don’t want to feel like I have to fight for what’s mine.

Not again.

The kids don’t come out of their rooms much.

I leave snacks and water outside their doors, like they’re sick, or sheltering in place.

It’s the only way I can make sure they don’t starve.

The next morning, I find them all curled up in Levi’s room.

Jemma and Iris flanking their brother, tangled in blankets, sharing one pillow between them.

Levi’s arm is draped over Iris’s shoulder, and Jemma’s toes peek out from under his blanket.

It’s quiet.

Peaceful, almost. Like they built their own little life raft in the wreckage.

The sight makes me feel like a monster.

Like the villain in a story I never wanted to write.

I’m breaking their family apart.

But I cannot stay.

Not for my sanity. Not for what little self I have left.

Saturday passes the same way.

Kyle packs.

The kids stay holed up in their rooms, only emerging for food, water, and the occasional glimpse of each other.

They don’t speak much.

They don’t ask questions. But I see it in their eyes, they’re waiting for this to be over.

On Sunday, I offer to help Kyle move into the apartment.

He looks surprised when I say it, then quietly grateful.

He’d asked if I wanted to help set up the kids’ rooms.

Said he didn’t want to mess it up.

I said they’re old enough to do it themselves, and they are.

But I still want to go. To see where they’ll be sleeping. To see what “home”

will look like when I’m not in it.

The apartment is a second-floor walk-up in a quiet complex with shaded trees and a row of identical beige buildings.

The kind of place that’s nice enough, clean enough, but forgettable.

Functional.

Like a hotel you’d stay in long-term, not a home you decorate for the holidays.

Inside, it smells like fresh paint and dust.

The floors are laminate wood, a little too shiny.

The walls are a generic off-white.

The kitchen is small, but open.

The living room has one window and no curtains yet. Boxes are stacked everywhere, most of them still taped shut.

The kids’ rooms are down a short hallway.

Three small bedrooms.

Levi gets the one, next to the master and Kyle’s already put the bedframe together, though the mattress still leans against the wall.

Jemma and Iris will have their own rooms across the hall from the master.

The closets are small but functional, and the windows face the parking lot. It’s not much. But it’s enough.

I help assemble a nightstand, then a set of shelves.

Kyle unboxes a few picture frames, prints of the kids at the beach, their drawings from school.

Nothing of me.

Nothing of just us.

A few family pics.

We don’t talk much, but it’s not tense.

It’s oddly… peaceful.

We’re two people rearranging the fallout.

Two people trying to give their kids something solid in the middle of the collapse.

I finish folding a small blanket for Iris’s bed and step back, brushing my hands on my jeans.

Kyle’s standing by the doorway of Levi’s room, looking at it like he’s not really seeing it.

Then, softly.

“Can we try?”

I freeze.

“I know you want the divorce,”

he says, voice low, shaky.

“and I’ve accepted it. I’ve tried to respect it. But Jackie… please. I don’t want to give up. Can we try again? Be a family again. Just… just give me one chance.”

I look down, eyes burning.

“Is that why you’ve been so agreeable?”

I ask.

“Why you signed every paper without a fight? You thought if you played nice I’d change my mind?”

His mouth opens, but no sound comes.

“Do you even understand what you did?”

I ask, stepping closer.

“I could’ve forgiven you for everything else. The lying. The cheating. All of it.”

My throat tightens. My hands are shaking.

“But Duke?”

His face crumples.

“You killed my child,”

I whisper.

“And then you let me blame myself. For everything. For not calling the ambulance sooner. For not being more careful. For not holding him longer.”

I choke out a breath.

“I lived with that. And you let me.”

“I didn’t know,”

he says, voice cracking.

“Jackie, I swear to God, I had no idea.”

“Of course you didn’t,”

I spit.

“You didn’t ask. You didn’t want to know. You pretended he didn’t exist. You buried him before I even had a chance to grieve him.”

He steps forward like he might reach for me, but I step back.

“I’m in therapy,”

he says.

“I’m trying. Please, Jackie… I’m trying.”

I shake my head slowly.

“I don’t trust you,”

I say.

“Do you get that? I don’t trust you with my heart. Or my life. Or the truth. I don’t even trust that what you’re feeling right now isn’t just guilt disguised as change.”

He looks like I slapped him.

“I can’t come back from that,”

I say, more quietly now.

“And neither can we.”

He doesn’t argue, doesn’t move.

I walk to the door.

“I’ll see you at drop-off.”

And this time, he doesn’t try to stop me.