Chapter 40

It had been nearly two weeks since New Year's Eve, and Beth could hardly remember how the night had ended—not in sequence, not in specifics. Just in feeling. The edges of memory shimmered like heat haze, soft and disjointed, refusing to sharpen no matter how many times she replayed them.

She remembered laughter, threaded loose and joyful through the air like ribbon. The golden hush of Changbin's apartment—warm lighting, low music, soft voices worn down to whispers. Cassie curled in a nest of pillows on the couch, swaddled in her dinosaur onesie, one tiny fist still clutching the tail like a lifeline. The weight of a borrowed hoodie around Beth's shoulders, its sleeves slightly too long, smelling faintly of detergent and something calmer than home. Changbin's mouth had brushed the corner of hers, tentative, reverent, as if the moment itself might vanish if he kissed her like he meant it. He hadn't dared more than that.

But she had.

"Next time," she'd murmured, low and tired but certain, "the lips."

She remembered the yet that hung in the space between them, suspended like a promise.

But there hadn't been a next time.

Not yet.

Changbin had been swept away by the inevitable tide of tour preparation—early mornings that bled into sleepless nights, choreography corrections in mirrored rooms that never dimmed, studio sessions lit by fluorescent hum and caffeine. Beth didn't see him except in glimpses—Cassie's scribbled drawings labeled BinBin with sparkly pants! or the rare, exhausted selfie dropped into Alex's group chat like a lighthouse beam cutting through fog. Even those updates felt strangely distant. Alex was still recovering, her body mending slowly, still too weary to do more than sleep through most days.

And Beth?

Beth was buried in Henry.

Not in love. Not even in guilt. Just in the endless avalanche of logistics. In the drawn-out, bone-deep tension of severing something that had long since rotted but refused to die cleanly. A marriage in decay didn't crumble. It clung.

Henry had started calling more often. Sometimes sober. Sometimes not.

The drunk calls were the worst.

Three voicemails came in after midnight one week, stacked like bruises: the first was angry, his voice ragged with accusation, claiming she was turning Cassie against him; the second was garbled by sobs, nearly incomprehensible, a wailing mess of regret and self-pity; the third had him singing to her. Off-key. Slurred. Their wedding song.

She didn't answer. Not a single one.

But she saved them.

She forwarded the audio files to Deena, her attorney, fingers steady despite the tremor in her chest. The response came back within five minutes, clipped and decisive.

We're filing for full physical and legal custody. No visitation.

Beth had stared at the message for a long time. She should have felt something—relief, maybe, or victory. Instead, she felt still. Hollow. Like something inside her had been standing too still for too long.

Now, she sat at the small kitchen table in Changbin's apartment—his guest key still on the hook by the door, the tea in her mug gone cold. She adjusted her sweater sleeves, fingers worrying the hem like worry beads, and took a long breath through her nose. Grounding.

In front of her, the laptop screen glowed pale and clinical. The courtroom-by-Zoom unfolded in stark rectangles, each window its own little stage. Henry was in the top left: unshaven, blotchy-eyed, slumped in a way that made the chair seem too big for him. His lawyer appeared in the next window, fingers steepled over his mouth in tense neutrality. In the bottom corner, Deena sat poised, professional and unreadable, her sleek bob and unshakable calm anchoring the entire frame. And at the center of it all, presiding with the same cool authority as before, was Judge Morales—sharp-eyed, steel-spined, the very same woman who had overseen Beth's emergency custody hearing in November.

The hearing had already begun. The clerk had sworn everyone in. Formalities dispensed. The air in Beth's lungs felt tight, like she was bracing for impact that never quite arrived.

Judge Morales leaned slightly forward, folding her hands with quiet intent. Her voice, when she spoke, was clipped but not unkind.

"Ms. Anders," she began. "We'll start with the matter of custody. Your counsel submitted documentation of multiple voicemail recordings, dated between December 20th and January 12th. Do you confirm these submissions?"

Beth straightened her spine. Her voice, when it came, was quiet but unwavering. "Yes, Your Honor."

"And can you confirm the identity of the voice on these recordings?"

"Henry Anders. My husband at the time."

"Were these messages left without coercion or entrapment?"

"They were unsolicited," Beth said evenly. "All three were left after midnight. My daughter was asleep in the next room."

There was a pause—long enough for the air to stretch taut, long enough for Beth to hear the soft scratch of the judge's pen moving across the page in front of her. Judge Morales didn't look up right away. She finished writing first, her posture precise, composed. Then, with a single nod, she spoke—voice even, clear, but carrying the weight of permanence.

"Let the record reflect that the recordings have been deemed admissible. Mr. Anders—do you contest their authenticity?"

Henry didn't lift his head. He sat slouched, shoulders caved in like his own bones had turned against him. His eyes were fixed somewhere just off-camera, unfocused, as if he was watching a memory play out on the wall instead of the hearing unfolding in real time. When he finally moved, it was only to shake his head—a small, jerking motion, more reflex than decision.

"Very well," said Judge Morales, her tone unchanged, but the finality in it landed like a gavel even before she continued. She turned to the lower frame on the screen. "Ms. Hayes?"

Deena responded without hesitation. Her voice was calm and deliberate, the professional crispness of a woman who didn't waste words.

"In light of these recordings and previous testimony provided during the emergency custody hearing, the petitioner formally requests full legal and physical custody, with no visitation rights granted."

Beth didn't move. Her hands remained clasped beneath the frame of the camera, fingers linked tightly enough to turn her knuckles pale. She felt each word land like a stone in water, rippling outward—quiet, contained, but irreversible.

The judge's gaze returned to Henry, steady and unflinching.

"Mr. Anders, you were previously warned that any further incidents involving substance abuse and verbal aggression could result in revocation of visitation. Do you wish to offer any mitigating context before I issue final judgment?"

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then, at last, Henry looked up—but not at Beth. Not even toward the middle of the screen. His eyes went straight to the judge, hollow and bloodshot, framed by the bruised edges of fatigue and something less nameable. His mouth opened, then closed again, as though the words inside him had grown too heavy to lift. His jaw twitched, clenched hard enough to shift the line of his cheek.

When he finally spoke, his voice was flat. Empty. Surrender made audible.

"No, Your Honor."

There was no pause. No dramatics.

"Custody awarded to Ms. Anders," Judge Morales ruled, tone clipped and definitive. "Effective immediately. No visitation. Supervised contact may be reconsidered after a two-year period, contingent upon documented proof of sobriety and psychological evaluation."

Beth didn't flinch. Didn't shift. Her face didn't even register the ruling, not outwardly. But somewhere deep in her spine—so far down it was closer to instinct than thought—something released. A slow unwinding. Like a cable finally slackening after being pulled too tight for too long. She didn't cry. She didn't smile. She just breathed, and for the first time in months, it didn't hurt.

—

The hearing moved forward, shifting without ceremony into the division of assets and financial responsibility.

Deena stepped in again, her posture perfect, her expression unreadable.

"Your Honor, we request that the respondent be held financially responsible for monthly child support payments, based on his income history and adjusted for regional cost-of-living. Additionally, we are filing for half of the joint savings account, including restitution for the amount withdrawn unilaterally by Mr. Anders three months ago."

Beth's eyes didn't leave the screen. Her stomach was a stone, her pulse dull and steady behind her ribs. Henry's lawyer—a man Beth barely remembered, except for his Chicago address and his voice like recycled cardboard—finally leaned forward. His tone was smooth, professional, built for damage control and slow retreats.

"Your Honor, Mr. Anders maintains that the withdrawals were made in good faith, with the intention of covering shared debts. Medical bills, childcare necessities, the mortgage on the primary residence—expenses that continued while the petitioner was out of state."

Beth didn't react. Not visibly. But Deena's response was swift—and sharp.

"If that were true," she said, smiling without warmth, "we wouldn't have a transaction record showing repeated withdrawals from Clearwater Beach, including charges from three different bars, a two-night condo rental, and a $600 receipt from a high-end golf course."

For the first time, Judge Morales raised an eyebrow. Her pen paused mid-stroke.

"Do you have those records on file?"

"We do, Your Honor," Deena confirmed smoothly. "They were uploaded in last week's addendum. Tabs thirteen through sixteen."

Beth watched, unblinking, as Henry's jaw shifted again—tight, irritated, maybe ashamed. But still, he didn't look at her. Not once.

"And Ms. Anders," the judge said, redirecting her attention. "Do you wish to make a claim on the remaining shared assets?"

Beth took a breath, folding her hands tighter in her lap. The room she sat in was warm—Changbin had left the heater running—but her fingers were cold anyway. She didn't hesitate.

"Yes, I do."

"Be specific."

Beth straightened in her seat, shoulders square, her voice low but certain—the kind of certainty that came not from bravado but from bone-deep resolve.

"I want half of the savings account, including restitution for the portion he spent. I want him to pay monthly child support. And I want the Whitbey Island property in full."

For a moment, there was only the faint scratching of pen against paper. Judge Morales paused mid-note, her gaze narrowing slightly as she lifted her eyes from the screen.

"Whitbey Island. That's the vacation property in Washington?"

"Yes, Your Honor," Beth replied, her tone even but lined with something more personal now. "We purchased it in 2020. It was meant to be a family investment. But I was the one who renovated it. I handled every permit. Every contractor. I poured the concrete for the patio with my father's trowel. I installed the damn railing myself when Henry said he'd 'get to it eventually.' He used it twice."

Her voice didn't break, but the weight behind it grew heavier with each word. Not from sadness—Beth had grieved already—but from ownership. From the history buried in every screw and beam of that house.

"I built that house for Cassie."

A flicker passed across Judge Morales's expression. Not pity. Not indulgence. Just the subtle shift of someone who had heard enough courtroom stories to know when a person wasn't just making a claim—they were staking a flag into the ground and daring anyone to pull it up.

"You are requesting full ownership of the Whitbey property, in addition to half the value of the primary residence?"

"Yes."

"You're not requesting the house itself?"

Beth inhaled—slow, deliberate. Then exhaled as if shedding weight she didn't want to carry any longer.

"No," she said, her voice like gravel smoothed under pressure. "He can keep it. Or sell it. I don't care. But I want half of what it's worth, down to the dollar."

Across the screen, Henry stirred. The first real movement he'd made in minutes. His shoulders tensed before his face followed, turning toward the camera at last. His features were blotched and drawn tight, eyes glassy with unslept nights and whatever he was still drinking to get through them. His voice cracked slightly when he spoke, not from emotion, but from friction—the kind that came from months of silent fury and too much whiskey.

"This would leave me with nothing," he said, his tone raw and simmering. "No house. No savings. You're taking everything."

Beth didn't react. Not at first. She let the silence stretch, let the weight of his words fall uselessly to the floor like dull pennies. Then she leaned forward just slightly, her elbows resting on the edge of the table. Her voice didn't rise. It didn't need to.

"Then shack up with Kristen."

The name landed like a dropped brick. The kind that didn't crack, just thudded hard and final.

The silence that followed was jagged—shocked, not stunned. Henry flinched. A small tic of the shoulder. His lawyer shifted in his box, clearly debating whether to reach for the mute button. Deena didn't even blink.

Beth's expression stayed neutral, but her voice sliced sharper now. Not cruel, just surgical.

"You've been living off charm and cheap beer for months. So go live with the woman you didn't think I'd notice."

Henry's mouth twisted, something bitter behind his teeth.

"You're really gonna sit there and pretend you're better?" he snapped, voice rising with the desperation of someone circling the drain. "You're sleeping in some stranger's apartment halfway across the world—what, because he smiles at you?"

Beth didn't blink. Her pulse didn't spike. She only exhaled, the breath slow and clean, as if she'd been holding it for years.

"I'm staying in a guest room offered by one of Alex's friends," she said, evenly, "because you drained every account we had. I had nothing left to pay for a hotel, or rent, or food for our daughter. Nothing. You emptied us out and left me and Cassie with a carry-on suitcase in a country where I don't even speak the language."

She paused long enough to look directly at the camera. Not at Henry, but at the system that had allowed this to go on for too long.

"You left me no choice. So no, I'm not sleeping with him. But even if I were, I wouldn't owe you an explanation. You're not my husband."

She didn't spit it. She didn't sneer. She delivered it like a diagnosis. Like the last line of a eulogy for a marriage long dead.

Deena took that cue and leaned back into frame, her voice smooth and composed.

"Your Honor, my client stands by her request for equitable division of property and support."

Judge Morales cleared her throat softly, her gaze not shifting, her poise unchanged. But something in her expression—just a flicker—tightened. Not surprise. Just weariness. The look of someone who had seen too many versions of this same man say too many of the same things.

"This court finds the petitioner's claims justified. Full ownership of the Whitbey Island property is awarded to Ms. Anders. Respondent is ordered to pay monthly child support, beginning February 1st. Half the current market value of the marital home is to be paid out within 120 days. If the amount cannot be paid in full, the house is to be listed for sale and proceeds divided accordingly."

The words didn't echo. They didn't ring in her ears or collapse under their own weight. They simply landed—quiet, final, unmoving.

Beth didn't flinch. Didn't blink. Her body stayed still, as if held together by threads she no longer needed to pull tight. But somewhere deep inside, below thought and breath, something clicked into place. Not a crash, not a rupture—just the quiet release of pressure after too many years wound too tight.

This wasn't triumph. It wasn't vengeance. It was clarity. Cold and clean as glass. The final knot unspooled without ceremony. The last rope—frayed and worn—slipped loose. And for once, the weight she had carried didn't come crashing down around her.

It lifted.

Judge Morales glanced down at her docket, the soft rustle of shifting paper the only sound between them, then looked back toward the camera with professional calm.

"This concludes the matter of custody and marital dissolution. You are now divorced. Court is adjourned."

Beth didn't move. Didn't reach for the mute button. Didn't exit the meeting or touch the laptop. Her hands remained folded, palms resting on the table, fingers no longer clenched.

She just looked.

For the first time in months—maybe longer—she allowed herself to really see Henry. Not the version she carried in memory, or the man she'd argued with over late-night phone calls and lawyers' fees. Not the husband she'd tried to salvage, or the father Cassie still asked about when the lights were off and her voice was small. Just him—in real time.

Henry didn't say anything. His camera stayed on, framing a face that had lost too much definition—eyes dull, mouth slack, jaw unshaven and pulled tight in confusion or fatigue or some cocktail of both. He looked like he'd been waiting for the gavel to fall, expecting impact, expecting pain. But nothing came. And in its absence, he looked... empty.

Beth understood that feeling. The numbness. The waiting. The way it dragged on and hollowed you out until you forgot what it was you were waiting for in the first place.

But she wasn't waiting anymore.

Slowly, she slid her left hand across the tabletop. Her fingers brushed the familiar ridge of gold at her knuckle. The ring came free easily—too easily, like it had been waiting for her permission to leave. It didn't catch. Didn't fight. It simply slipped off.

Beth held it up between two fingers, letting the dull gold catch the faintest edge of her laptop's screen glow. It didn't gleam. It didn't shine. It just was—a symbol that had stopped meaning anything long ago.

Then she lowered it out of frame.

"I'll ship this to you," she said. Her voice was low. Measured. Not cruel. Not kind. Just... finished. "You'll have it by the end of the week."

Henry blinked—once. His mouth opened, the start of some protest rising and dying in the same breath. But nothing came. He just gave a small, bitter nod. Not apology. Not gratitude. Just acknowledgment.

Then he clicked out.

His screen disappeared without ceremony, vanishing into the digital ether like a window closing on a room that no longer belonged to her.

Beth stayed where she was.

For a moment, she watched the empty screen as if it might change, as if some new truth might crawl out from the quiet. But it didn't. The silence remained still, not expectant. The meeting was over. It had been over for a long time.

With deliberate calm, she reached forward and closed the laptop. Not with force. Not like slamming a door.

But gently.

Like laying something to rest.