THEO
BY THE END of August divorce papers arrived in my mail for Imogene. It was Thomas’s way of asking me to break it to her.
She tore the envelope open, didn’t read a thing, and scribbled her name with vengeance. “I don’t care,” she huffed. “I just don’t care anymore. Who needs a husband, anyway?”
“Well, let’s face it,” I said. “You don’t need a husband . . . like Mamaí, you need a hero. But let me read those before you send them back.”
Her tightened eyes relaxed. She grabbed a pack of Salems and headed out to her patio. I sat behind the register and read the documents. The papers were pithy and precise, like Thomas.
He had secured work in a lumber mill in Idaho and wanted to set her, and himself, free. He wanted only for her to be happy. He wrote, There is no longer love between us, only pain. I sealed the papers to mail and put that note in Imogene’s coat pocket. She’d discover it when the time was right. And later I’d tell her Judge Madsen was paving the adoption path for Tula. I saw in Imogene’s life the cliché about a door closing and God opening a window.
Was that hallowed cliché happening in my life as well? Along with the divorce papers came another piece of mail, a postcard from the Portland Rose Gardens that read, I’m very busy selling Daddy’s law firm. Will be in Manzanita by October, for a good long stay. —Andréa