"I want a divorce. An ugly, useless housewife like you—I've got no more use for you."
My husband, Keisuke, flung the words at my back while I was making dinner.
The hand holding the kitchen knife stopped for just a moment. That was all.
"Be out by tomorrow. Have your stuff packed."
When I turned around, a young woman was standing beside Keisuke. Flashy nails, a cloying reek of perfume. She was looking me over from head to toe, as if putting a price on me.
"I'm Miyu Kurusu. Nice to meet youuu."
The woman laughed. As though she were already the lady of this house, she dropped onto the sofa with a thump. Still wearing her shoes, she put her feet up on the table.
I watched her do it in silence. The sofa Keisuke and I had spent hours agonizing over together when we were newlyweds. The one that had cost months of take-home pay, that we'd bought on a loan—no, that we'd paid for outright. And there she was, shoes and all.
"Hey, Keisukeee, when's she leaving? I wanna start moving my stuff in already."
"Yeah, soon. Right, Haruka? You heard me."
I quietly turned off the stove.
"Yes. I heard you."
"At least you're not bawling and shrieking like most women would. Don't you forget—I kept you for ten years. You owe me."
Kept. I wrote that word down in the notebook deep inside my heart. Along with the date, and the time.
Ten years. For ten years, I had devoted myself to this man. I got up early to make his lunches, ironed his dress shirts, and went back and forth, head bowed, to help care for his parents. I couldn't remember ever once hearing "thank you."
Even so, I thought. Even so—the reason I could stay this calm was that, three whole years ago, some part of me had already known this day would come.
"So you really mean it."
"Of course I do. Miyu's young and cute. Unlike you, she knows how to make a man feel respected. It's an insult to her to even compare you two."
Miyu giggled and looked around the living room.
"Huh, this place is nicer than I thought. It's gonna be my house, right? I wanna redo all the decor."
I untied my apron strings. Slowly, carefully.
"Keisuke. Let me make sure of just one thing."
"Huh?"
"There are still almost twenty years left on this house's mortgage, aren't there? Ninety thousand yen a month, withdrawn automatically. Can you keep paying that?"
A faint, smug smile appeared on Keisuke's face.
"Don't worry about it. On what I make, that's nothing. With you gone, I'll save on living expenses too. If anything, it'll be easier."
"I see. Then that's fine."
I took my planner from my bag and wrote down a single line. Keisuke probably took it for some pathetic, clingy regret. He snorted.
"Wanna take a picture or something? One last memento. Oh, if you're taking one, take it of this."
Keisuke put his arm around Miyu's shoulders and kissed her, making a show of it. Miyu held up her phone, and the two of them took a selfie. The shutter sound rang out strangely loud.
On Keisuke's wrist, as he held up the phone, a luxury watch gleamed. The imported car in the garage, that watch—he called them all "a real provider's due." Without once wondering whose wallet the money came out of, or who was filing away the receipts.
I watched them in silence.
There was no anger. Hardly any sadness left, either. All I felt was the quiet sense of checking items off a list.
Ah, that completes the set, I thought. The decisive shot—and they'd handed it to me themselves.
"I'll leave tomorrow."
With that, I headed for the bedroom. Behind me, I could hear the two of them laughing.
At the very back of the bedroom closet, I opened a locked drawer.
Inside was a single file. Nothing was written on its cover.
What it held were the things I had collected over these past three years, without missing a single one.
Copies of hotel receipts. Screenshots of late-night messages. A private detective agency's investigation report. A bundle of receipts, paid from the household budget, for the luxury watch, the imported car, the golf clubs—all the things he'd bought up and called "a real provider's due." And then—a single land registry certificate for the land.
I gently traced with my finger the name written in its "Owner" field.
Haruka Shirase. My name.
"'Kept,' was it?"
I smiled faintly.
Tomorrow, I would leave this house. But it wasn't the end.
It was only a short running start, so that I could come back.