The anniversary dinner was not the sole reason our marriage ended. It was simply the final weight placed on a structure that had been failing for more than a decade.

“I know you’re sorry,” I told him. “But I’m not the same woman who kept forgiving you for this. I have no interest in becoming her again.”

He lowered his gaze. For once, his silence belonged entirely to him.

Chapter 9 — The Table I Chose

The divorce became official on a gray Tuesday morning. I left the courthouse holding both children’s hands, just as I had led them from the dining room two years earlier.

This time, though, I was not escaping. I was walking toward the rest of our lives — back to a home that belonged fully to us, a place where no one could assign us a lesser position at our own table.

A week later, Hian hosted a small dinner for the children and me. Nothing about it was elaborate. We sat around her kitchen table on mismatched chairs, surrounded by more food than we could possibly eat.