I listened to his voice while staring at the wedding dress I'd already shredded to pieces, the portrait he'd painted of me, the love letters he'd written, all of it garbage now, stuffed into cardboard boxes. I smiled, pressed the record button, and asked him right back.
"Turned me into what, exactly?"
"I'm not sure I follow."
"Why don't you," I watched the movers carry out the last of it, the apartment already half-empty, "spell it out for me, Mr. Simmons?"
I stopped paying attention to Justin and Odette. I watched the movers haul out the final box. A diary slipped from it and hit the floor.
The mover picked it up and turned to me.
"Ms. Payne?"
"You want to toss this too?"
The pages had yellowed.
On the cover was a Polaroid of me and Justin from seven years ago, taken at a bubble tea shop. Our smiles were so sweet.
Now.
That sweetness tasted bitter.
"Throw it away."
I took one last look at what used to be our home, pulled the door shut, got in the car, and called my lawyer.
"The documents."
"I've sent you everything."
"Now, I want to file for preservation of all joint marital assets and recover every single thing Justin transferred to Odette during the course of our marriage."