I Was His Wife for 8 Years, He Paid Me Like a Maid Chapter 10
At divorce mediation, Damon didn’t fight for custody.
He agreed Lily would live with me.
He’d have scheduled visitation and cover his share of child–related expenses.
Before signing, he sat in silence for a long time.
“I’m sorry‘ doesn’t make up for eight years.” But I still owe you that much.”
I tucked the agreement into my bag.
“I heard the apology. But I don’t need to go back.”
Damon’s pen hovered over the page. Then he signed.
After the divorce, he started learning the small things he’d ignored for years.
He memorized Lily’s shoe size and her allergies.
He went with Grandma Ashford to her appointments himself.
He stopped making his secretary buy gifts for visitation days.
He was changing. But those changes only made him a better father and a better grandson.
They didn’t make him my husband again.
Lily was willing to have dinner with him sometimes. But she never asked when Daddy was coming home.
Because wherever Mommy was, that was home.
Before his first solo weekend with Lily, Damon stayed up all night memorizing her allergy list.
When Lily came home, she told me, “Daddy didn’t ask anyone else to do it this time. He made dinner
himself.”
I just fixed her backpack. Damon getting better was what Lily deserved from her father.
It wasn’t a reason for me to go back.
Six months later, my father had recovered well.
I used my salary to pay back the three–hundred–thousand advance from Evan.
Then Naomi and I founded Sterling & Hayes Family Management.
I put everything I’d once given away for free into writing.
Elder care. Household management. Event planning. Every task had a flat rate now. Extra hours billed separately.
Women who’d spent years as full–time homemakers started walking through the door.
Some of them just stood there, staring at the rate sheet.
For the first time, they saw their own work listed as work.
And that changed something behind their eyes.
The first time some of them saw the rate sheet, their eyes welled up.
“This counts as work?”
I nodded. “Of course it counts.”
On opening day, Evan brought an investment proposal.
“Partners first.”
“Everything else can wait.”
He didn’t use Stella as leverage. He didn’t ask me to become anyone’s replacement.
I read the proposal carefully and signed the partnership line.
Stella leaned over the desk. “Is Miss Sterling still going to live with us?”
Evan didn’t answer for me. I thought about it.
“Only when work requires it.”
“Otherwise, I’ll start as a neighbor.”
“Fine.”
Stella pretended to sulk, but she taped her drawing of the four of us onto the studio wall.
Online, some people still sneered.
[All that drama, and she still didn’t get the Ashford money?]
I responded publicly for the first time.
[I cared for grandmother. I raised our daughter. I ran a household. For eight years.]
[I treated marriage like a marriage. He treated it like a transaction.]
[So I walked away from a failed marriage. I didn’t fail at getting paid.]
I turned off my phone.
Lily ran in with a box of white strawberries.
She’d bought them with her first allowance from helping organize cards at the studio.
She held out the biggest one.
“Mommy, you first this time.”
I didn’t save it for anyone.
I took a bite.
It was sweet.
And so were the days ahead.
