“Kyle?” My secretary Anne’s voice on the intercom interrupted my thoughts as I sat at my desk, staring at a picture of my wife and kids, unsure when I would see them again. I’d walked out of the house the day after Jay’s capture because every time I looked at Lisa, my mind would become enraged and I just wanted to strangle her for her betrayal. For her protection and mine, I moved onto the boat with Allen. Still, my thoughts kept returning to Lisa. Believe it or not, as much as I hated her for what she’d done to me and Jay, I still loved her and I missed her. Crazy, right? I was one messed-up dude, and it was making it really hard to concentrate on anything these days.
I flipped the picture facedown and tried to bring my focus back to running my business. “Yes,” I said through the intercom.
“Someone’s here to see you.”
“Who is it?” I snapped.
“Umm, a Mr. Anthony Davis,” she said tentatively. Poor woman was probably a little shell-shocked by my recent unpredictable mood. I’d been so irritable that simply announcing a visitor was enough to set me off. I made a mental note to put a little bonus in her next paycheck as a sort of apology.
“He’s not on my calendar,” I said, though it was possible that I’d failed to write the appointment down. Lord knows my mind had been all over the place as of late.
“He’s not on mine either,” she replied, “but he said you definitely want to see what he has to show you.”
“All right. Send him back,” I said. He was probably just some salesman wanting me to carry his product in my stores. I could get rid of him quick enough.
As I waited for my visitor, I looked down at the checkbook on my desk, then back up at the invoice on the computer screen. Shit. I’d written two checks for the same damn invoice. No way should I have been trying to deal with money and numbers with my mind all fucked up. I ripped up one of the checks and threw it in the shredder as Anthony Davis entered my office.
“Kyle Richmond?” He was a white dude wearing a crisp white shirt and some khakis, carrying a black leather briefcase. It looked kind of small to be carrying hair care products.
“Yes.” I stood up from behind my desk and extended my hand. “Anthony Davis?”
“Yes, sir.” He approached me and reached his arm out, but instead of shaking my hand, he placed some papers in it.
“What’s this?” I unfolded the papers.
“Those are court documents,” he said as my eyes scanned the first couple of lines. “You’ve been served.”
My mouth opened, but no words came out. I was stunned.
“Served for what?” I was finally able to force out in a barely audible tone. I could feel my pulse pounding in the side of my neck.
“I believe your wife is divorcing you,” he said.
“Divorcing me,” I muttered as I read further. “This is bullshit!” I called out, flipping through the pages. Certain phrases jumped out at me: Claimant requests $15,000 in monthly alimony. Half of the community business. House in the Hamptons. The Jamaica Estates house, the Porsche, and the boat named Vanessa.
“Why the fuck is she going after my car and my boat?” This couldn’t be real. She didn’t just want half; she wanted everything. “This can’t be right,” I mumbled, shaking my head.
I looked up toward Mr. Davis as my words trailed off, but he was no longer there. Apparently, once he served the papers, his job was done. He’d turned on his heels and hauled ass out of my office. I went charging toward my door to catch up with the processor, but I tripped over my wastebasket and landed flat on my face, the papers flying out of my hand into the corner.
“Fuck!” I yelled out. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” The fall hadn’t hurt that much. As a matter of fact, it hadn’t hurt at all, because by the time I hit the floor, my entire being had already been numbed by the cruel dose of anesthesia Lisa had concocted in the form of divorce papers.
I peeled myself up off the floor and went for my cell phone, dialing her number.
A recording came on instantly. “The number you have dialed has been disconnected or changed. Please dial the number again or check with an operator.”
“What the fuck!”
All of a sudden everything was a blur, because my eyes had filled with tears. After twenty-something years together, Lisa had betrayed me in the worst way.
“Liar.” The word crept from between my lips as I looked toward a small end table and caught sight of a picture of me and my wife in happier times. “Liar,” I said again, stepping toward the table. Wiping away my tears, I picked up the picture and stared at it. My hands began to tremble with anger. “It was all a lie. You lied. We were a lie.” With each statement, my voice grew louder. “A fucking lie. My life was one big fucking lie!” I threw the picture across the room, where it slammed into the wall, the glass shattering on the floor.
The next thing I knew, I was flipping my desk, throwing my computer onto the floor, tossing my chair against the wall, and punching a hole in the drywall. Hurricane Kyle was sweeping through my office. I’d heard people talk about out-of-body experiences, and now I understood how very real that experience could be. I honestly felt as if I were standing off to the side, watching someone else destroy my office. I stood there watching without a fight, without even trying to salvage anything. If my marriage couldn’t be salvaged, then I certainly didn’t give a shit about anything else.
With my energy spent, I stopped tearing the place apart and stood before the catastrophic scene, taking it all in. My eyes zoomed in on what had catapulted it all—the divorce papers. Walking over to the corner where they lay, I knelt down and collected them in my hands. Tears streamed down my face as I read every word this time. It was real. Lisa was leaving me, and my brain simply could not comprehend that reality. I couldn’t remember what life had been like before her. I couldn’t even grasp what it would be like without her. Yet at the same time, in that moment I didn’t care, because I hated her more than anyone in the world.
“Kyle? Kyle? You okay, man?”
No matter how many times I said those words to myself in my head, I knew things would never be okay. I couldn’t see us coming back from this.
“Kyle, man. Everything is going to be okay.”
It took a minute for me to realize that the voice wasn’t in my head. It was real. I looked up to see Wil standing over me.
“Get up, Kyle. Come on, man. It’s going to be all right.”
He extended his hand to me. Behind him I could see Anne, as well as another employee, standing in the doorway looking terrified. My eyes shifted around the disaster zone that was my office. How long had I been tearing things apart for Wil to have made it over here? It had felt like a minute, but I must have been going crazy for quite some time.
“What happened?” Wil asked.
“He stormed out of here about two hours ago like a wild man. Then he returned and started throwing things. That’s when I called you. He was passed out up until now,” Anne explained. “I’ve never seen him like this, Mr. Duncan.”
I couldn’t wrap my head around anything she was saying. She was talking about hours, yet I remembered almost nothing of what had happened after the process server left. It was like I had blacked out and lost a huge chunk of time.
“Has he been drinking?” Wil asked.
“I don’t know,” Anne answered, “but I don’t think so. He doesn’t keep alcohol in the office. All I know is a man came to visit him, and then this started.”
Wil pulled me up off the floor. “What’s going on, Kyle?” he asked me, speaking in a gentle tone.
I sniffed, wiping the snot from my nose onto my sleeve. “She’s leaving me,” I cried. “Lisa’s leaving me. She filed for divorce—but I don’t care, because I hate her.”
“It’s okay, Kyle. It’s okay,” he repeated. “Come on. Let’s get you back to the boat.” Wil put his arm around me and guided me toward the door. “Let’s get out of here.”
Anne and the employee stepped aside as Wil led me out of my office. I turned and looked one last time at the destruction that remained behind me. Not long ago, I had hoped that Lisa would come to her senses regarding the situation with Jay, but it appeared now that ultimately, I was the one who had lost my senses. Even worse, I felt like I had lost my mind.
“Don’t take me to the boat, Wil. I think I need you to take me to the hospital.”