He Didn’t See Our Son Suffocate, He Saw Her Concert Tickets Chapter 08

He Didn’t See Our Son Suffocate, He Saw Her Concert Tickets Chapter 08

“Fiona.”

His voice was thick with emotion. Ethan stood there in a brown coat, radiating defeat. He looked haggard. Worn down.

I lifted my gaze and met his eyes. I didn’t look away. I didn’t need to.

“You’ve thought it through, then?”

He paused, clearly thrown that my first words to him were so cold.

“Fiona. Is divorce really the only thing you want to talk to me about?”

I let a small, sardonic smile cross my face. “What else is there?”

His eyes reddened. He pressed his lips together.

“I’ve decided not to go. Let’s stay here — in the States. We can go back to the way things were. I’ll take care of our son. You can work if you want. Whatever you need.”

He said it like he was making some grand concession.

I shrugged. “I’m already doing all of that right now. You know what I’ve realized, Ethan? Without you, my life is pretty much the same as it was before.”

His expression froze, like I’d physically struck him. But it was the truth.

All those years — whenever I needed him most, he wasn’t there. And Vivian? He’d drop everything for her. Over time, his presence in our lives had faded to practically nothing.

Ethan stepped closer, his whole posture shrinking.

“Fiona. Vivian emigrated alone. I swear to you, she’s never coming back. You know what it’s like for me now? Every single day I come home to cold, empty walls. I crank the heat as high as it’ll go and I’m still freezing.”

“Please. Come back. I’ll put you first. I’ll put our son first. Just — come back.”

“Ethan.” My voice was steady. “You know what’s really something? Our son is learning to talk. He can say ‘Mama.’ But his teacher told me — he just can’t seem to learn ‘Dada.'”

“You were there. You were physically there. But if a child can’t feel his own father’s presence — how was I supposed to?”

He covered his ears and shook his head, frantic. “Stop. Please. Stop.”

“I’ve made up my mind.” I didn’t waver. “I’m not going to let him know you exist. I’ll tell him his father is gone.”

He looked up at me, stunned. I kept going.

“Because I refuse to spend my life explaining to him that his father never loved us. That his father was too busy pining for a woman he could never have.”

Ethan bit down on his lip until blood beaded at the surface.

“Don’t. Please, Fiona, don’t do this…”

His pleading meant nothing to me. Not anymore.

I brushed past him, then stopped.

“Tomorrow. Ten o’clock. Courthouse. Don’t be late.”

I walked into the night and I didn’t look back.

At exactly ten the next morning, Ethan was standing outside the courthouse, his face a pallid mask. I walked in without a word, took a number, signed the forms. When the clerk ran through the standard questions, I answered clearly: “I am filing for divorce voluntarily.”

When they asked Ethan, he picked at his cuticles and ground his teeth. But he didn’t say those words.

The process moved fast. When the stamp came down, that was it. The marriage was over.

Outside, the sky opened up. I raised my umbrella, my back to him. “Take care of yourself.”

By the time he registered what was happening, I’d already vanished into the downpour.

Vivian emigrated, but with no real education she ended up working in a factory. She picked a fight trying to assert herself in some clique and put someone in the hospital. She was extradited back to stand trial.

Ethan’s cash flow collapsed after his last-minute decision to stay in the States. Overnight, the company he’d spent years building was in ruins. The man who’d once burned so bright shut himself away in his study, defeated, tears drying on his face in the dark. He’d stare at our empty chat window. At the daily updates on my social media.

That was when it finally hit him.

I could live a better life without him. All he could do was wither.

Alone. In the dead of night.