The Divorcee- revised

Her stilettos clicked against the marble and then concrete as she walked out of the office into the carpark. Her pace did not slow down even though her steps caused water to splash from puddles that were freshly formed on the ground from a light shower that ended only minutes ago.
Her hands fumbled for her car keys in the right pocket of her jacket, before she grabbed them and unlocked her black BMW. It was only when she slammed the car door shut, turned on the air-con, and music from her favourite radio station was blasting out of the hi-fi that she sighed and leaned her head gently onto the head rest.

Evelyn disliked the lawyer’s office. She wondered why Philip had chosen that particular lawyer. Mr Low was severe and unrelenting in probing about her marriage, which Evelyn felt was strange. Wasn’t divorce one of those issues in life that was always approached hesitantly and carefully, like how someone always hesitates before asking a terminally ill patient if he was feeling okay?

She had assumed it would be like those drama serials, where the gorgeous female lead sashays into the lawyer’s office and signs the divorce paper with a flourish. And the philandering husband gets his comeuppance. She laughed at her own naivete.

Yet divorce was more than a signature. Every trip to the lawyer’s office made her feel like speeding down to Clarke Quay and spend the rest of the day getting wasted. But unfortunately she was wasting away at something else, called the paperwork and paraphernalia of divorce. The endless visits to the lawyer and griming over alimony settlements. Even worse were the stacks of boxes swimming around her house and over her head as he prepared to move out and away from her. She could still hear the ringing of the keyboard in Mr Khoo's office as he typed out documents, talking but never speaking to her, pressing her for information about the marriage (or the lack of it). Perhaps the austerity of the whole affair had been a little too startling and foreign; she had assumed it could end with one signature.

She turned out of the car park and began her quick drive towards the nearby Republic Tower. While alcohol was tempting, she had a client to meet in thirty minutes. A divorced woman was diminished worth in an unkind society-she had to make up for that with an outstanding stockbroker portfolio.

As she drove along Raffles Place, she remembered that it was here where she met him to initiate the divorce. She couldn’t do it at home, purely because she could never find him there. But he was always at work, and it made sense to look for him here.

"If you think you can just walk out of this, literally or not, and leave all the mess and the shit for me to clean up after you, you're going to be really sorry."She squared her shoulders."I didn't live till now just so I could get walked all over by assholes like you. And put up with your lies and smirks and stupid ways. Or come home to a jerk with foreign perfume and lipstick all over his shirt for me to breathe in."

Perhaps she hadn't meant to sound so harsh, but the years of frustration pinched every word that fell from her lips.

"So I'm saying that if you want to move on, then we make this quick and fast and it'll be all over. You don't walk away as and when you like, you don't avoid me and think that everything will pick up all by itself. A messed up marriage still needs cleaning up after."

And that was how she had initiated the divorce, and it had been so sudden, like she had delivered the blow with a sledgehammer, even as the "institution" as they liked to call it, had fallen apart over the five years that they were tied together by that damned certificate.But she was glad that she hadn't gone all histrionic and emotional on him.

She liked the way she stated her decision the way a very tired doctor told a patient's family that that there was absolutely no more hope at the end of an exceedingly gruelling operation.And contrary to popular opinion, the sky didn't fall and the world didn't end. She perfected the manner in which she delivered the divorce news to her friends and colleagues. She learnt how to craft her voice into a lilt of mild disappointment and sadness, and displayed a little bit of frailty on her features. This usually meant pauses of uncomfortable silence at the lunch table, but someone else would always cleverly orchestrate a change in subject matter and the lively mindless chatter would gain momentum again, everyone forgetting, or perhaps pretending that the awkward subject of her divorce had never been broached in the first place.

“It’s okay.” She spoke softly, to comfort herself. She had it all; a nice apartment, a great job she loved, friends who would pub with her till late and confidants who could see through her and comfort her. So she had no husband. Big deal.No, she had lost that one to another woman."I'll be leaving you this place, so it'll make settlements a lot easier," he said, as he was tugging the suitcase along the hallway." Where will you live then?" she asked absent-mindedly. Communications between them had broken down to lines of polite chatter.He shrugged." I and Su.. I mean, I've found a place to stay in, for, you know, a short while." But he had already given himself away.She shook her head as she recounted that particular memory. It was no wonder that Philip had let go of the house so easily; he had already established another home, so whatever here never really mattered in the first place.
The car’s speed slowed as it was nearing lunch time and congestion was beginning to form. She cruised along the main road to turn out of an exit for the car park. She had arranged to meet her client at Republic Tower’s cafe.
“Mummy! Daddy! Look!” Evelyn heard as she wound down the window while approaching the car park from the hectic road. She turned her head to glance in curiosity for young children were rarely found in Raffles Place on a Tuesday afternoon.
Suddenly, she realised that she had done something terribly wrong and gripped the steering wheel with whitened knuckles. Evelyn had glanced at the kid for too long and had made the wrong turn. She would pay for it now.
There was an incoming truck, which she swerved to avoid and slammed into the side of her car. Wincing in pain, she swerved again to the left to avoid the motorcycle that was heading straight in her direction. There were honking sounds everywhere as furious drivers wondered what on earth was this car doing travelling against the traffic! Evelyn panicked, and she knew that it was hopeless. There were far too many vehicles. “Too many...”, she thought helplessly as her entire vision swung sideways with the motion of her vehicle.
She had swerved too much this time. The car crashed into a large tree that was off the road and the force created a colossal dent in the front of her car as it came to a stop that broke the glass window shield into shards coloured by the black smoke spewing from the damaged engine.
Evelyn was not spared. She felt her entire body thrust forward, restrained by the seatbelt that could not stop her head from smashing onto the steering wheel.
Evelyn thought maybe her skull cracked, for her head was throbbing so intensely she didn’t bother to fight the unconsciousness that was creeping over her. There were voices floating around her-she guessed the accident must have caused quite a commotion.
But behind her fluttering eyelids, all she saw was the kid of five seconds ago, laughing and shouting for his parents. There was her ex-husband, walking leisurely along the pavement, holding the hands of another woman, smiling fondly at his son. He must have been three years old, and she had never known.
“Mummy! Daddy!”
Evelyn cringed at the voice playing over and over in her head. “Get out!” she screamed silently, and begged for sleep to take her away. Take her away from the old house of unhappy memories, from Mr Khoo’s office, from the busybodies who had gathered around her car, from the kid with the mocking laughter ...