Page 104 of The Humiliated Wife

"The timing couldn't be better," the principal continued. "With these new funds, we can finally replace those ancient computers in the lab, get new instruments for the music program, maybe even bring back the field trip budget."

Field trips. Fiona's heart squeezed. She would love to take her students to the natural history museum this year.

The same place where Dean had taken her on one of their first dates. When falling in love with him had been the easiest thing in the world.

She forced herself to stop thinking about Dean. Instead, she focused on the anonymous benefactor who was making all this possible.

"Whoever this person is," she said quietly, "they're changing kids' lives."

As the meeting moved on to less exciting topics, Fiona found herself staring out the window, thinking about invisible angels. Someone out there understood what public education really needed. Not just funding, but respect. Professional presentation. The kind of support that made their work visible to people who had the power to help.

Someone had seen her world—her students, her classroom, her district—and decided it was worth fighting for.

She just wished she knew who to thank.

The principal interrupted her thoughts. “One last thing, can everyone bring in their teaching certifications by Friday? The state audit is coming up again.”

Fiona's stomach dropped slightly. Her certification was in the filing cabinet at the apartment. The apartment that was still technically Dean's, even though he'd offered it to her in the divorce. Even though she was moving back there on Saturday.

She’d get it after school today. Dean would be at the office. He wouldn’t even notice.

CHAPTER 44

Dean

Dean stoodin the middle of their bedroom—herbedroom now—surrounded by boxes and the careful archaeology of a life being dismantled.

He'd started with his clothes. That was easy. The expensive suits, the designer shirts. Jeans, t-shirts, the concert shirt that still smelled faintly like her perfume.

The coffee maker stayed. The good one, the one that made her coffee exactly how she liked it. He'd packed his instant coffee instead, even though it tasted like disappointment.

The throw blanket she loved—the soft gray one she'd curl up in while grading papers—stayed draped over the couch exactly where she'd left it.

Her books were still on the shelves, mixed in with his. He'd thought about separating them, but some of them they'd read together, discussed over dinner, and he couldn't tell anymore what was hers and what was his and what belonged to the version of them that used to exist.

So he left them all.

In the kitchen, he left everything. The fancy cookware, the comfortable, well-seasoned cast iron pan she'd inherited from her grandmother. Left the good knives, the stand mixer she'd used to make those cookies that had solved everything except the one thing that actually mattered to him now. Fiona’s heart.

The bathroom was harder. His shaving products went into a box, but he left the good towels, the lotions.

Dean opened the medicine cabinet and stared at her things still there—the face wash she'd used every night, the lip balm that tasted like strawberries, the hair ties scattered on every surface. He closed it without touching anything.

In the closet, her side was still mostly empty from when she'd packed that first time. But there were things she'd left behind—a few dresses, the cardigan with the small hole near the elbow that she'd never thrown away, shoes she'd probably forgotten about.

He left it all exactly where it was.

And on the entry table by the front door, next to the ceramic bowl that still held a tangle of spare keys and old receipts—her wedding ring. Quiet and final. Small enough to miss if you weren’t looking, heavy enough to knock the air out of his lungs when he was.

Dean stood frozen for a moment, staring at it.

Then, slowly, he reached out and turned off the hallway light. The apartment darkened around him, warm with silence, thick with memory.

And without fully deciding to, he drifted back toward the bedroom.

Dean couldn't bringhimself to leave the bedroom.

He'd packed up, loaded box after box into his car. The living room was stripped of his presence, the kitchen cleared of his brand of coffee. But here, in this room where they'd built the most intimate parts of their life together, he found himself frozen.