Olivia nervously checked her watch. Her ex-husband was late again, as he always had been. Twenty years of marriage had taught her to expect his habitual delays, but this meeting felt particularly vexing. After all, the conversation ahead demanded every ounce of her resolve.
“You don’t have to do this, love,” Kate, Olivia’s oldest friend, whispered across the café table. “Surely, it’s—”
“It is,” Olivia interrupted, smoothing her trembling fingers through her hair. “I’ve given this weeks of thought.”
The city had just finished its morning bustle when they’d arrived. Now, the café filled with the familiar rhythm of post-work crowds—families grabbing quick meals, single professionals(content). Olivia had become one of the latter since the divorce. Her three-bedroom flat in Manchester, awarded to her in the settlement, now felt as empty as the past five years had been.
“You’re giving all your savings?” Kate said, her voice full of quiet panic. “Liv, that’s your *entire* nest egg. This isn’t a business arrangement—”
“Not the one from grandmother, no,” Olivia shrugged, her tone brisk. “I’ll be fine. And I’ve made up my mind.”
“You sound like one of those wartime dramas,” Kate grumbled. “It’s not like he’s Coercing you with a sword, for God’s sake.”
“He keeps telling me not to do this,” Olivia muttered, adjusting her earring. “As if I’m being psychic about his ‘need for help’.”
“You’ve bailed him out *every damn time*, but that was years ago. For heavens’ sake, *he* asked the judge for the divorce!”
Olivia didn’t reply. Outside, the Mercedes she had instantly recognized as Michael’s pulled into the car park. Five years had done little to soften the sight of it.
“Here he is,” she murmured.
“*Don’t* be a fool,” Kate pressed one last time, tossing coins on the table before kissing Olivia’s cheek. “But Olivia—*think*.”
The door clinked as Kate left. Michael flashed a stiff nod at his ex-mother-in-law as they passed, their mutual dislike unspoken but unambiguous. He slid into the seat across from Olivia.
“Knew you’d be late,” she said evenly, sipping her cold tea. “Forty minutes this time. Still a champion.”
“Could argue I saved you from loneliness,” Michael replied, adjusting his tie. At fifty-five, his grey-blond hair and trim build still attracted attention from women in the supermarket. Olivia used to believe he was hers.
“I’ve decided to give you all the money I’ve saved,” she announced before he could speak.
“What?” His body twitched like a horse sensing rain. “But… that’s over three million, isn’t it?”
“Three million, four hundred thousand pounds, to be exact,” she confirmed. “All of it.”
Michael’s face went pale. He’d expected support, not a miracle. “I can repay—”
“You won’t,” Olivia said softly, smiling the “I-see-right-through-you” smirk she’d perfected over decades. “But you’ll pretend to. Just like you promised to ‘never be late again’ in 1998 and ‘live in the flat with me’ in 2002 and ‘stop seeing other women’ in 2010.”
For once, he avoided her eyes.
“Is this about Jeremy?” he asked suddenly, his voice unsteady.
Olivia’s tea cup clinked against the saucer. Their son, now twenty-eight, hadn’t contacted her since the divorce. “Why would you assume—?”
“You think helping me will make him speak to you,” Michael said flatly. “But it won’t, Liv. It’s not that simple.”
She crossed her arms. “It’s not about Jeremy. It’s about *you* being my ex-husband.”
“And the father who raised our son,” he pressed, covering her hand with his. “That part still matters.”
“And the man who let me raise him alone?” she retorted, withdrawing her hand. “All those nights you were out with ‘your assistant’? That part matters too. Just hand this folder over and be done with it.”
The cashier gave them a wary side-eye as they walked to the bank. Spring rain lashed the pavement, and Olivia’s coat whipped in the wind as they drove. Their son’s childhood—his first toddler steps in this car, his birthday surprises at this petrol station—flashed through her mind. So much had been lost since the divorce, but nothing compared to the weight of this decision.
When the funds transferred, Olivia felt… nothing. No tremor, no tears. Just the quiet clatter of keys on paper.
“You’ll come to dinner?” Michael offered outside the bank, his tone soft. “Just to celebrate you being less poor?”
“No, thank you,” she said, smiling like she’d just agreed to a charity gala. “I get excited thinking about my next therapy session.”
The reconciliation with Jeremy five years later happened exactly as Olivia had predicted: he came unannounced, disbelieving her version of events until the evidence (Michael’s repayment cheque and the divorce papers) hit his hands. By then, Olivia had already bought a cottage in Seaford Bay, where she now spent her days painting the harbor and smiling at her son’s visits.
“Best decision I ever made,” she often told passersby at the fish and chip shop. “Turns out, three million can’t buy freedom, but *giving it up* can.”