Prologue

"I'm divorcing you," are the first words to come out of his mouth when he walks in the door. I am sitting at the dinner table, papers stacked in piles, a piece of buttered bread in my mouth. He says it again, for impact. "I'm divorcing you, Arie." I look up at him now, finally, and see his face for the first time in days; a kind of stupid, naive face, plastic-framed glasses perched on his nose, brown eyes unfocused, messy, like his hair. I look back down at the paper in front of me.

Retention and Profit Data for [Busy Bee], it reads across the top, Page 13. Unlucky.

"What?" my husband (soon to be ex-husband, apparently) says, a note of hysteria rising in his voice, and I realize I have said it aloud, that word: Unlucky. "I come home for the first time in - days, and tell you I want a divorce, and that's what you have to say? Unlucky?" he blusters, outrage rising, and I turn to him, realizing that this will have to occupy my full attention before it escalates any further.

"I meant the papers. I'm on page 13."

"Oh, of course, the paperwork. That's all you ever think about, isn't it? The damn paperwork!" he shouts, and I step off of the stool(a really nice stool, actually, one I picked out myself; it's mahogany, of course, a beautifully rich red-brown color, and quite heavy) in an attempt to ground the conversation.

"I'm sorry, darling, I was only making an observation."

"I'm so sick of this," he says, running a hand through his hair, and somewhere in the back of my head I notice that it makes him look somewhat like a peacock; all bluster, flaunting some ridiculous trophy of a tail in a desperate bid for my attention. "I'm so sick of you."

"I'm sorry, baby, I'm trying, I promise. It's just this new game we've released, it's taking up all of my time," I say, sliding my arms around him. "I'm doing this for us."

He drags his hands down his face. "You always do this. Every time. Is this what it takes to get you to talk to me now? I'm your husband, for god's sake!"

"I know, I'm sorry," I murmur into his shirt, and look up at him. Messy, I think, because he is; he is messy. He became messy; he wasn't messy when we dated, wasn't messy when we got married. Only now, under a comfortable roof surrounded by good food and easy living is he messy. I would never have married him if I knew this, but, of course - people are never what they seem. "Let's get counselling," I purr into his ear, smelling the faint scent of alcohol and unfamiliar perfume rising from his face. So he cheated.

I begin to think, to begin planning the appropriate consequence; something that will punish him, something that is equivalent to his crime. "I'm trying, darling, really," I say, and just to hammer in the point, I whisper to his cheek, "I love you, baby. You're the only one for me," and kiss him. I feel tears from his own face falling onto mine, and know that I have trapped him again, reeled him back into my life. Do I want him is the question now, a question that relies on perhaps how messy he will be in the future, and how convenient it is to dispose of him.

"I'm sorry," he says, whimpering.

Pathetic, I think to myself. He reminds me of the dog I had as a child - a brainless, gutless mess. At least he doesn't wet the bed.

"Counselling," he repeats, like it was his idea. I smile, though, because it doesn't matter whose idea he thinks it was. What is important now is that he believes it, this lie, that I love him and he loves me, and that everything can be sunshine and rainbows if we try hard enough.

This is why I married him, really, I suppose; because he is trusting and stupid and doesn't get in the way. I release him and turn back to my papers, to the table, but he reaches out to clutch at my hand.

"Honey," he whines pathetically, like a mosquito, "I'm sorry." Begging for attention, his face downcast, his eyes watery; have I trained him well enough? I'm not sure. I bring him back to me, hug him, stroke his back, his hair, kiss his cheek, let him cry in my lap, leaving a damp spot on my leg. And then: those words. Again. "I want a divorce," he whispers, through snot and tears, into my shoulder, and it is then I realize: my husband has to die.