Chapter 14 - THE LAST THING GREGORY WANTED FROM VIVIAN
The divorce was finalized eleven months and six days after the wedding.
The second time Vivian walked out of a courthouse because of Gregory felt nothing like the first.
No white dress.
No flowers.
No family photographs.
Just Leah, a gray Chicago afternoon, and a final stamped document.
Gregory waited near the elevator.
“Vivian.”
Leah looked at her.
Vivian nodded.
“I’m okay.”
Gregory approached slowly.
He had learned, at least physically, not to close distance without invitation.
That was something.
“Can I give you something?”
“What?”
He held out a small black envelope.
Inside was the key card to the condo.
The old physical spare.
It had already been electronically disabled months earlier.
Vivian looked at it.
“You could’ve mailed it.”
“I know.”
She waited.
Gregory swallowed.
“I wanted to say goodbye without lawyers.”
“Then say goodbye.”
He almost smiled.
“You never make anything easy.”
Vivian stared.
He caught himself.
“Sorry.”
Another small thing.
Gregory looked toward the courthouse windows.
“I sold my interest in Hale Development Holdings.”
Vivian nodded.
She already knew.
Part of the settlement.
“I paid my parents back.”
“Good.”
“I’m working with a smaller restaurant group in Milwaukee.”
“I heard.”
“They don’t let me approve vendors.”
That almost made her laugh.
“Probably smart.”
He smiled faintly.
Then his expression changed.
“Was any of it real to you?”
Vivian felt a familiar exhaustion.
“That’s the wrong question.”
“Why?”
“Because you keep thinking one answer cancels the other.”
He looked at her.
“I loved you.”
“That was real.”
“You loved me?”
“Yes.”
His eyes filled.
“Also real.”
“Then what wasn’t?”
Vivian thought of the signature.
The password.
The table.
His hand around her wrist.
“The idea that love made permission permanent.”
Gregory looked down at the disabled key.
Then handed it to her.
Vivian closed her fingers around it.
He asked:
“Do you think I can change?”
There it was.
The last thing he wanted.
Not money.
Not access.
A verdict from Vivian that he was redeemable.
She refused to give him one.
“I don’t know.”
His face tightened.
“You really don’t?”
“No.”
“What am I supposed to do with that?”
Vivian slipped the key into her bag.
“Whatever you do next when nobody is watching.”
She walked away.
Leah caught up beside her.
“You okay?”
May you like
Vivian nodded.
This time it was true enough.
