His Ongoing Story, One Dot to End It

Ten days after I lost the baby, my mother somehow found out. She packed her bags overnight and endured a grueling forty hour bus ride across the country, traveling over a thousand miles from the Blue Ridge Mountains all the way to New York City. Thunder rumbled outside the penthouse windows. A violent storm was swallowing the Northeast. After the doctor noted my severe depressive tendencies, Alistair grounded me inside our home. I was completely forbidden from leaving the apartment. I had no choice but to ask him to pick up my mother from the station. A few moments after I sent the text, a single, lonely “.” popped up on my screen. I could not remember when it started, but our text thread had devolved into my one sided paragraphs met with his single punctuation marks. A period meant agreement. He would do it. A question mark meant opposition. A flat rejection. Although he was icy and distant, Alistair was always a man of his word. He handled things efficiently. I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, practicing my smile, praying my mother would not notice the hollow look in my eyes. I just wanted our family to be together. But right before lunch, Alistair walked through the front door. Alone. 1 “Where is my mother?” I gripped the edge of the dining table. A sharp cramp twisted through my lower abdomen. I had overestimated my own emotional resilience and entirely underestimated the physical toll of losing a child. I did not even have the energy to be angry. He froze, genuinely startled by my question. As if suddenly remembering something trivial, he pulled his phone from his tailored slacks and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I apologize. I will have Harry go pick her up right now.” “I had a highly classified board meeting today. I asked Valerie to handle my personal errands.” “She was the one replying to your messages. There must have been a miscommunication in the schedule.” It was impossible to describe how I felt in that exact second. Beneath the swirling hurricane of emotions, only one word remained. Humiliation. I always believed that the cracks in a marriage should be handled privately between a husband and wife. Now, my desperate, ignored pleas for affection were being managed by his secretary. The shame magnified a hundred times over, making me want to scream and sob. I could not even focus on the fact that he casually referred to picking up my mother as a “personal errand.” “You are my husband. She is just your assistant. How could you let her text your wife on your behalf?” “This is our family business. She is an outsider. I do not want her involved in our…” I could not finish the sentence. Because Alistair looked right at me and said, “Since when is she an outsider?” “Were you not thrilled with the flowers and gifts she picked out for our anniversary?” His words made my ears ring with a deafening screech. It felt like someone had taken a baseball bat to the back of my skull. My vision fractured into sharp flashes of black and white. So for the past two years, every ounce of romance and tenderness I thought came from my husband was actually orchestrated by another woman. “Alistair, if I had known those gifts were not from you, I never would have accepted them.” “What is the difference? The flowers were bought. The gifts were delivered.” “Of course there is a difference! I thought you actually cared about me.” My voice trembled uncontrollably. My fingernails dug deep into my palms, but the pain felt muted, like it belonged to someone else. “Of course I care about you.” His tone was laced with heavy exhaustion. “You are my wife. I want to spend my days with you too.” He stepped forward and pulled me into his chest. His large hand gently rubbed circles into my spine. Through the thin fabric of my loungewear, his body heat bled into my skin. My body surrendered before my logic could stop it. My shoulders sagged, and I melted into his embrace. It felt exactly like a person falling off a cliff finally being caught. He pressed a kiss to my forehead. His warm breath brushed against the shell of my ear. “But if I asked you to be my executive assistant, would you even understand the financial reports?” The room plunged into a suffocating silence. He was right. I would not understand them. Compared to Valerie, a woman groomed from birth with an elite Ivy League education, my background was a joke. I was a high school dropout. A girl who gutted fish at the docks. I could never sit at his polished mahogany tables. Realizing his words had cut too deep, his brow furrowed. He opened his mouth to fix it. He was usually a man of impeccable manners and restraint. He hated making people uncomfortable. Pursuing a working class girl like me was probably the only reckless, out of character thing he had ever done in his entire life. Before he could speak, the heavy oak door was pushed open. A vicious gust of wind and rain howled into the foyer. My mother stood dripping wet on the marble floor. 2 “Gem, what is going on here?” Her silver hair was plastered to her skull by the freezing rain. Her thin, worn jacket was splattered with street mud, clinging tightly to her frail frame. Her hearing was not great. Years of working near loud factory machinery had taken its toll. She must not have heard him. I prayed she did not hear him. Forcing back the burning tears threatening to spill, I rushed over and pulled her inside. “Mom, I told you I wanted to go with Alistair to pick you up. He refused to let me out of the house.” She stared deeply into my eyes for a long time before letting out a breath of relief, a soft smile touching her lips. “He is just worried about your health, sweetie. You should listen to him.” “I know, Mom. We are doing great.” “We really are.” Alistair reached out and gently supported her arm. “Lunch is already prepared. I will have Martha show you to a guest room so you can freshen up. My mother is on her way as well. We will all eat together.” He deflected the tension perfectly, sealing the cracks without missing a beat. Just like nothing had ever happened. I had spent the entire morning preparing lunch. I made a batch of savory, rustic meat pies from scratch. Before we moved to the Blue Ridge Mountains, my mother lived in a gritty Pennsylvania steel town for thirty years. It was her favorite comfort food. When Alistair’s mother arrived, Valerie was trailing right behind her, carrying her designer coat and pulling out her chair with natural, practiced intimacy. I swallowed the bitter taste of disgust in my mouth, turned around, and walked to the kitchen to grab the meat pies. The moment I stepped back into the dining room, a chorus of elegant laughter echoed off the walls. “Oh, my goodness! Why are you drinking the finger bowl water? That is so dirty!” My mother froze. The rim of the porcelain bowl clinked sharply against the glass table. Alistair’s mother casually swirled the floating lemon slices in her own crystal bowl. “It is water for washing your hands after the meal.” “But country folks do not know about these little etiquette rules. We cannot blame you.” Valerie smiled sweetly, her eyes curving into crescents as she waved for the housekeeper to take the bowl away. “Please do not take it to heart. One of my colleagues told me a story about her rural relatives visiting the city. They drank the mouthwash thinking it was a cocktail, and they started foaming at the mouth while talking! They terrified themselves to tears. We laughed about it in the office for days.” “I will print out a dining etiquette guide for you later. You will get the hang of it if you study hard.” My mother kept her head bowed. Her narrow shoulders trembled slightly. A few drops of the lemon water had splashed onto her faded trousers. She tried to discreetly wipe it away with her thumb, but it only made the dark stain spread. I walked straight to her chair, picked up the porcelain finger bowl in front of her, and drank the remaining lemon water in one single gulp. My mother’s head snapped up. She grabbed my wrist. “Gem!” Her calloused, ice cold fingers shook against my skin. I squeezed her hand reassuringly and locked eyes with Valerie. “What exactly do you want my mother to study? Care to teach me right now?” Valerie’s smile shattered. She shot a nervous glance at Alistair’s mother before forcing another bright, plastic laugh. “Gemma, sweetie. I was just trying to lighten the mood. I wanted to make her smile.” “Is that so? Why don’t you make me smile, then?” My mother tugged frantically at the hem of my shirt under the table. She abruptly stood up, forcing a wide, apologetic smile at Alistair’s mother. “Please forgive her. Gem has not been feeling well these past few days. She is just a little snappy.” “She gets that temper from me. Please do not hold it against her.” She pulled me gently behind her back. She used her slightly hunched, fragile body as a human shield to protect me from their judgment. 3 I sat back down next to my mother. The housekeeper placed the warm meat pies in front of me. “Why are these filled with vegetables? I specifically made the heavy pork ones.” Alistair’s mother dabbed her lips with a linen napkin. “That heavy grease and salt from the country is a terrible way to nourish the body. It completely violates our family’s dietary standards. I had the private chef prepare organic truffle and scallop tarts instead.” My fingers curled into tight fists. I opened my mouth to fight back. My mother quickly patted the back of my hand. “Sitting on a bumpy bus for forty hours really turns your stomach. Heavy pork would have been too greasy anyway. A light meal is exactly what I needed.” She picked up a small piece of the pale, bland tart with her fork and shoved it into her mouth, chewing with exaggerated enthusiasm. “Delicious. Absolutely delicious.” The rest of the meal tasted like pure ash in my mouth. My father died when I was young. The year he passed, a wealthy local businessman knocked on our door. He offered to support us financially, but only if my mother agreed to become his secret mistress. My mother beat him out of the yard with a broomstick. After that, the local gossip made it impossible for us to stay in town. She packed all our belongings into a single duffel bag and took me from Pennsylvania all the way down to the rural mountains of North Carolina. She begged a local coffee farm owner to let her work the fields. She begged distant relatives to let us sleep in their drafty shed. She begged the high school principal not to expel me when I broke the nose of a bully who insulted our poverty. The year I was supposed to take my college entrance exams, she worked herself into a hospital bed. I juggled studying with taking care of her. When my test scores came back exceptionally high, she tried to drag her sick body out of bed to pick up extra shifts to pay my tuition. The day my university acceptance letter arrived in the mail, I tore it perfectly in half and threw it into the woodstove. The very next morning, I walked down to the local fish market and got a job gutting fish. When she came home from the clinic and saw the burnt corners of the thick envelope in the ashes, she crouched on the kitchen floor and stared at it for a very long time. When Alistair proposed to me, she was terrified his elite family would look down on me. She sold our tiny, worn down house just to scrape together fifty thousand dollars for my dowry. Even though that money could not even buy a single wheel on one of Alistair’s luxury sports cars, she sold her home anyway. The moment my wedding reception ended, she immediately grabbed her bags and headed to the bus station to travel back south. She claimed the farm needed her for the harvest season. But I knew the truth. She was terrified that if the Kensington family saw her rough, calloused hands and heard her thick country accent, they would despise me for my lowborn roots. She was terrified that staying even one extra day would ruin my perfect fairytale. Before she boarded that bus, she shoved her entire life savings into my hands. “Gem, keep this money. Do not let his family treat you like you are worthless.” “I am a useless mother. I could not even afford to send you to college.” “But seeing you this happy… I can finally rest.” And now, she had endured forty hours of pure agony on a rattling bus to make sure I was okay. And I could not even let her eat a slice of her favorite pie. 4 After lunch, Alistair’s mother stood up and left. The suffocating tension in the living room finally eased. The housekeeper walked up to Alistair carrying a plastic bucket. “Sir, how should I dispose of this?” Valerie was walking down the sweeping staircase. She took one look at the bucket and pinched her nose in disgust. “What smells like rotting garbage? Martha, throw that out immediately.” Forty hours sitting upright on a rattling bus was brutal. Despite my mother’s careful protection, a few of the farm fresh eggs she brought had cracked. The yolk had soaked into the protective rice husks, brewing a faint, sour stench in the humid summer heat. My mother panicked and desperately reached into the bucket, trying to salvage the unbroken eggs. She looked terrified and entirely consumed by guilt. “The roads were just too bumpy. I wanted you to have some real, organic farm eggs to help your body heal.” She kept her head down, refusing to meet my eyes. “I didn’t mean to make a mess.” She hurriedly pulled a plastic grocery bag from her worn backpack. “Alistair, I know your work requires a lot of brainpower. I foraged these wild black walnuts from the mountain myself. They are incredibly fresh and sweet. Please, have some.” Valerie laughed brightly. “Walnuts do not actually boost brain function. That is a total myth.” “Besides, this is New York City. We have absolutely everything. We are not lacking anything here.” Wild black walnuts were delicious, but foraging them by hand meant the natural juices stained your skin pitch black. The stains were impossible to wash off for weeks. Alistair glanced at the stained plastic bag, frowned slightly, and subtly stepped backward to avoid her. My mother’s hands froze in midair. The desperate hope in her eyes slowly shattered, fading into a dull, empty gray. She slowly pulled her hands back and nervously wiped her palms against her thighs. “Right. Of course. This is the big city.” “You have everything here. You have everything.” Valerie kept smiling. “Your country accent is so incredibly thick. You really need to speak slower, or Alistair will not understand a word you are saying.” Having delivered her final insult, Valerie hugged a stack of legal folders to her chest and marched upstairs. The living room descended into dead silence. Alistair checked his platinum watch. “It is getting late. I will have the driver take you to your hotel now.” “I had Valerie book a premium hot spring suite for you. You should relax and enjoy yourself.” I snatched the plastic bag of walnuts from my mother’s hands and glared at him. “Why does she have to stay at a hotel? We have empty guest rooms right here.” He looked down at me, his expression perfectly calm and rational. “You just suffered a miscarriage. Are you going to take care of her, or is she going to take care of you?” “Besides, Valerie’s guest room cannot be moved.” “And why exactly is her room off limits?” My mother quickly intervened, waving her hands with a forced, breathless laugh. “A hotel is perfect! I can sleep anywhere. And I have never been to a real hot spring before.” She grabbed her backpack and practically sprinted toward the front door, slipping quickly into the backseat of the waiting luxury car. “Gem.” “I am completely fine. You just take care of yourself.” She forced her spine to stay perfectly rigid as she sat in the car. It was a desperate attempt to prove she was strong. I closed my eyes and fought every instinct screaming at me to get in that car and leave with her. Instead, I stayed behind and carefully picked the unbroken eggs out of the trash. By the time I remembered the bag of wild walnuts, someone had already tossed them into the garbage bin. I knelt on the cold kitchen floor and dug the plastic bag out of the trash. The handles were tied together in a frantic, impossibly tight knot. Terrified that the bumpy roads would ruin them, my mother had tied four dead knots to keep them safe. My phone vibrated in my pocket. It was my mother. “Gem, do not throw a tantrum at Alistair. I am really okay.” “If he does not want to eat the walnuts, do not force him. Please, do not start a fight with your husband because of me.” I wiped the coffee grounds off the outside of the plastic bag, ripped it open, grabbed a handful of the crushed walnuts, and shoved them into my mouth. Tears streamed down my face like a broken dam. 5 The salty tears mixed with the earthy walnuts, creating a bitter, suffocating paste in my mouth. It was not even walnut season. How long did she spend wandering the mountains to find these? How many hours did she spend smashing the hard shells open with a hammer? How long did it take to peel the bitter skin off every single piece? I forced my throat to open, pitching my voice an octave higher so she would not hear the violent sobs wrecking my chest. “Mom, he loved them. He just ate a whole handful.” “Oh, thank god. That is wonderful.” “I am just getting old and useless. My brain does not work right anymore. You need Alistair to protect you now.” “Do not fight with him. Do not make me worry about you, okay?” “I know, Mom. Get some sleep. I will come pick you up first thing in the morning.” After hanging up the phone, I grabbed the plastic bag and slowly walked upstairs. In the study, Alistair was leaning over a desk, reviewing documents with Valerie. Catching sight of my bloodshot, swollen eyes, Alistair frowned. He held up a hand, signaling Valerie to stop talking. He walked over and pulled a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket, offering it to me. “I know Valerie’s scheduling had a slight hiccup today, but you finally got to see your mother. There is no reason to keep throwing a temper tantrum.” He actually thought I was crying because I was jealous of Valerie. He could not even comprehend that I was weeping for my mother’s shattered dignity. Alistair was a man who lived his entire life saying ‘no’ to people. He had no concept of what it felt like to have your entire heart ripped out and casually tossed into the garbage. Or maybe he just did not care. “Gemma, sweetie. I admit I made a mistake today, and I hope you will not hold a grudge against my boss.” “I promise I will go to the hotel first thing tomorrow and personally apologize to your mother. Can you forgive me?” I shook my head. “No. I do not forgive you.” Alistair’s face instantly darkened. He stared at me critically for a few seconds before gesturing for Valerie to leave the room. “I understand your emotions are unstable right now.” “But you have no right to humiliate Valerie like that.” “You are Mrs. Kensington now. You are no longer that…” I heard the unspoken words echoing loudly in the silence. “I should no longer act like a petty, uneducated fishmonger. Is that what you mean?” He stiffened, but he did not deny it. After a long, agonizing silence, looking at the towering man standing in front of me, I finally asked the question burning a hole in my chest. “Alistair. Do you regret marrying me?” 6 The story of Alistair and I was painfully simple. It was the classic tale of Cinderella finding a cursed frog prince. I did not care that he was temporarily paralyzed in a wheelchair. He did not care that I constantly smelled like gutted fish. We met. We understood each other’s pain. We fell madly in love. We truly believed we were two halves of a whole soul. But then the frog turned back into a prince. He reclaimed his rightful place as the heir to the Kensington empire. His legs fully healed. Ignoring the vicious objections of his entire aristocratic family, he married me. In fairy tales, the wedding is the final page. It is the happily ever after. But outside of the fairy tale, real life kept moving. The flawless, impenetrable mask Alistair always wore finally cracked. He reached out and gripped my shoulders tightly. Before he could speak, his phone rang. The moment he saw the caller ID, a flash of genuine panic crossed his eyes. A woman’s voice spilled through the speaker. She was speaking rapid French, her tone slurred and dripping with intoxication. “Alistair… I made a mistake. I really made a mistake. I regret running away from the wedding.” Alistair’s voice immediately softened into a puddle of absolute devotion. “I do not blame you.” “Can you please come see me?” Valerie had grown up in the exact same elite circles as Alistair. Using French to communicate was their little secret code. He covered the microphone and looked at me. “There is a massive corporate emergency. We will finish this conversation when I get back, alright?” He had no idea his lie was completely transparent. He also had no idea that for the past two years, in a desperate attempt to become worthy of his world, I had secretly taught myself French. I looked at him and said, “Alright.” I walked back to our master bedroom alone. I sat on the edge of the mattress and swallowed the wild walnuts my mother had brought, one by one. If Cinderella realized she was completely miserable after moving into the castle, would she regret putting on the glass slipper? I did not know the answer to that. But I tossed and turned until dawn, completely unable to sleep. My mother sacrificed everything she had just to see me happy. Was I actually happy? 7 At four in the morning, the heavy rain finally stopped. The streets of Manhattan smelled like wet asphalt and ozone. Since I could not sleep, I went down to the kitchen and cooked a fresh batch of meat pies. A drop of boiling water splashed onto the back of my hand. The sharp, stinging pain briefly snapped my wandering mind back to reality. I packed the pies and a thermos of hot soup into a bag, hailed a yellow cab, and headed straight to the luxury hotel. When I walked through the revolving doors of the grand lobby, I noticed a small crowd of employees gathered near the entrance. My mother stood in the center of the circle, her back facing me. She was bowing so deeply her spine was almost parallel to the floor. “I am so sorry. I am so sorry. I will leave right now.” “Leave? Who said you could just walk away? We were nice enough not to call the cops on you, and we let you sleep on the patio in the freezing rain all night.” Alistair specifically told me Valerie booked a premium hot spring suite. It poured rain in New York City all night long. Did my mother really sleep on the cold concrete outside? It felt like someone reached into my chest and crushed my heart with their bare hands. “Look what you did! You tracked mud all over our custom carpets. We have VIP clients arriving any minute. Can a beggar like you afford to pay for this damage?” Panic consumed my mother. She frantically dug through her pockets and pulled out a faded cloth handkerchief. She bent down to scrub the mud stains out of the carpet. Her knees were ruined by severe arthritis. She could not even squat properly, so her legs shook violently as she hovered over the floor. “I will clean it. I promise I will clean it up.” She dropped to her knees and scrubbed the expensive fabric with her cheap handkerchief. After a few frantic swipes, the cloth was so filthy you could not even tell what color it used to be. I was suffocating. I dropped my thermos and prepared to sprint across the lobby. Before I could move, a sleek black Maybach pulled up to the curb outside. Alistair stepped out first. Valerie followed closely behind him. The hotel manager’s sneer instantly morphed into a glowing, sycophantic smile. He rushed toward the sliding glass doors. “Mr. Kensington! Welcome, sir. Please, right this way. We will have this mess cleaned up immediately.” Before he could finish his sentence, my mother looked up from the floor. The moment she recognized the man in the tailored suit, she grabbed her aching knees and dragged herself to her feet. “Alistair! Alistair!” “I accidentally got some dirt on their rug. Please tell them not to be mad at me.” The hotel manager stared at Alistair in shock. “Mr. Kensington, do you know this woman?” Valerie gracefully brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “Do we look like the kind of people who would associate with someone like that?” “It is pathetic how these hillbillies will claim to be related to anyone with money just to get a handout. How embarrassing.” Alistair acted like he did not hear a single word. He walked right past my mother without even glancing in her direction. My mother froze like a statue. Under the hotel manager’s disgusted, mocking glare, she crushed the filthy handkerchief in her fist and bowed her head in total submission. “I apologize. I apologize… I had the wrong person.” “Harry! Clear the lobby immediately! Our investors are going to be here any second.” “Do not make me question your professional competence.” The manager nodded furiously and signaled for the security guards to swarm forward. A burly guard shoved my mother backward. She lost her footing, and her arthritic knees slammed brutally against the sharp marble steps. I lost my mind. I sprinted forward and violently shoved the guards away. “Mom!” When she saw my face, she panicked, desperately trying to hide the mud soaked handkerchief behind her back. “Gem, what are you doing here? I was just about to come see you…” “Mom, stop talking. I saw everything.” She forced a broken, agonizing smile that looked more painful than crying. “I am just getting old. My eyes do not work right anymore. I thought I saw someone else. I embarrassed you.” My throat felt like I had swallowed a handful of burning coals. The heavy metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. “Mom, what are you talking about?” “You are the strongest, most amazing mother in the world.” Her eyes instantly flooded with tears. A heavy drop rolled down her cheek and splashed onto the back of my hand. “Gem…” She could not finish her sentence. The weight of her body suddenly collapsed against my shoulder. She went completely limp, sliding toward the marble floor. “Mom!” “Call an ambulance! Somebody call a fucking ambulance!” 8 I stood in the agonizingly long line at the hospital billing counter. My palms were drenched in cold sweat, crushing the admission papers in my grip. The elderly man at the front of the line was counting out crumpled dollar bills one by one. Time stretched into an unbearable eternity. The emergency room doctor told me she collapsed from severe hypoglycemia. If I had arrived even ten minutes later, she could have died. Due to years of brutal physical labor, her body was a minefield of underlying health issues. Treating her was not impossible, but the long term recovery would cost an astronomical amount of money. My hands shook violently as I dialed Alistair’s number. It rang three times before the call was rejected. My heart crashed into my stomach. I dialed again. It went straight to voicemail. I opened my texts and typed: My mother is in the hospital. A second later, a single “.” popped up on my screen. Staring at that tiny dot, which looked exactly like a speck of useless dust, the blood in my veins boiled until I saw red. Logically, I knew Alistair was probably in the middle of a massive corporate negotiation. That text was probably sent by Valerie. But I still hated him with every fiber of my being. I hated Alistair. But more than anything, I hated myself. After paying the emergency room deposit, my bank account was completely empty. When we got married, Alistair handed me a black card with no limit and told me to buy whatever I wanted. I refused to take it. My mother always told me that being poor did not mean you had to surrender your pride. Our family was already completely outmatched by the Kensington dynasty. We could not give them another reason to look down on us. That was her pride. And it was mine, too. But I only had a high school diploma. If I went out to find a job, I would just be working a cash register or stocking shelves. Alistair could not bear the thought of his wife doing manual labor, so I never brought up finding a job again. He paid for my food, my clothes, my entire existence. Whenever he traveled to Europe for business, he would bring back expensive trinkets he thought I might like. Over the last two years, I had written a few web novels online for pocket change. I barely had a few thousand dollars saved up. I forced my mother to take the entire fifty thousand dollar dowry back to North Carolina with her. When a woman walks down the aisle brimming with hope and dreams of a beautiful future, she never imagines she will end up this completely pathetic. I stared at my bloodshot, tear stained reflection in the hospital glass. I raised my hand and slapped myself across the face as hard as I could. Gemma, how did you become such a useless piece of trash? I pulled up Alistair’s mother’s phone number and hit dial. “Mrs. Kensington, my mother is in the hospital. I need money right now…” Her mocking sneer was completely unfiltered. “I was wondering how long you would last. You finally found a convenient excuse to beg for a handout, didn’t you?” “Speak up. How much do you want? Ten thousand? Twenty thousand? A million?” “This time your mother is sick. What pathetic excuse are you going to invent next time?” “I knew the second that woman showed up at my door, nothing good would come of it.” I gripped the phone so hard the plastic cracked. My fingernails dug deeply into the flesh of my palm. “Three million.” “Excuse me? Do you honestly think you are worth that much?” “I will divorce Alistair.” I still did not know if Alistair actually regretted marrying me. But standing here today, I absolutely regretted putting on that glass slipper. It was freezing cold. It was suffocatingly tight. It had crushed every single one of my foolish, romantic delusions into dust. Love is not omnipotent. And it certainly does not last forever, despite what the diamond commercials try to sell you. 9 Saying those words out loud was not nearly as painful as I imagined it would be. The woman on the other end of the line went dead silent. It was clearly not the answer she was expecting. “Are you actually willing to let him go? I thought you were so desperately in love with Alistair you would rather die than leave him.” “I do love him. But I am not the only woman in the world who loves him. If you do not trust my word, we can draft a legally binding contract.” “You voluntarily wire the funds. I voluntarily sign the divorce papers.”

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