A magnificent tree, cultivated with immense care, dominated the corner of the property, its sprawling branches providing a lush canopy over a bench that had been assembled and carved by hand. Kevin leaned back against the smooth wood of the bench, tilted his head toward the sky, and lit a cigarette. It felt unbelievably good to just sit here in his friend’s backyard and let his mind go blank; for a few moments, he was simply relaxing. But the mountain of problems he was barely managing to climb was already beginning to reclaim the territory of his thoughts.
The harder he pushed back against these intrusive worries, the more persistent and loud they became. He ground out his cigarette on a small ceramic saucer, propped his feet up on a decorative footstool, and stretched his arms out along the back of the bench. Just a few feet away, his friend stood at the grill, expertly flipping steaks and skewered vegetables.
– I just don’t get how you did it, man. – he began, his voice a low grumble. – Just up and divorced. And now you’re living the good life, not a care in the world, as they say. I’m at my wit’s end with my own.
– A shrew is a shrew, and that’s all she’ll ever be, constantly unhappy with everything. But what am I supposed to do? I can’t just divorce her like you did, I have business to consider. Can you believe it? The only reason I even got together with her was to secure a better financial future.
– Her great-grandmother had that enormous estate, you know, and rumors of untold fortunes in offshore accounts. The old lady, an Ivanson. Yeah, that’s right, a descendant of those Ivansons, the industrial tycoons with the same last name.
– Anyway, the gossip was that the old matriarch was on her last legs, and my Valerie, being the sole heir, was set to inherit everything. So, you know, I put in the effort, turned on the charm, swept her off her feet. I figured, hey, I can tolerate this for a little while, and then we’ll split everything down the middle in the divorce.
– But that old bat, she turned out to be tougher than a two-dollar steak. Can you believe it? She held on for another two years! – the man recounted with dramatic flair. He gesticulated wildly, his frustration boiling over, impossible to conceal.
He went on and on, his friend merely listening, not uttering a single word. Kevin continued his rant. – So, my Val, her maiden name was Ivanson too.
– Naturally, I assumed the old woman would leave everything to her. But get this—she bequeathed all the money to God knows who, some illegitimate son nobody had ever heard of. Can you wrap your head around that? I slept next to that plain-looking woman for two years, all for the dream of making a huge score and never having to work another day in my life.
– And it was all for nothing! – the man raged, clutching his head in his hands. – You’re selling your wife short, Kevin, – his friend said calmly, turning the steaks over once more. – She’s a good woman. Kind, attractive, a little reserved maybe, but that’s a good thing, isn’t it? Besides, she’s completely self-sufficient.
– Hell, she works like a Trojan, supports you, she even bought you that luxury SUV for eighty grand, and all you do is complain about her. A wife like that should be cherished, not criticized for a lost inheritance. My wife and I, we parted on good terms. We just fell out of love and decided to go our separate ways, – Owen said.
He paused for a moment, then decided to continue, even though he had never broached this specific topic with his friend before. – You should just talk to her, handle it peacefully and get a divorce. Because Valerie, as kind as she is, can retaliate in ways you can’t even imagine if you push her too far. And you really need to stop bringing your mistresses into your marital bed.
– Isn’t that a sin? – It’s a sin, but it’s a damn fun one, – Kevin roared with laughter. – A woman can’t be good if she’s smart, you get me? And Valerie is a smart woman, sometimes way too smart for her own good.
– I tell her she needs to be weaker, more submissive, to yield to her man, and she comes back at me with, ‘Well, who’s going to earn the money for this family then?’ But my Tiffany, she’s dumb. I mean, hopelessly, impenetrably dumb. A typical girl raised with three goals in life: get married, have kids, and live off her husband’s dime…
– Those are the kind of women you can twist around your little finger. All you have to do is promise them the moon, and they’ll string the stars for you themselves. She’ll build this whole fantasy in her head about the wedding, about the dozen kids you’ll have, and all you have to do is promise and nod along with her ridiculous requests.
– A woman like that walks right into a trap the moment she says ‘I do.’ Out of desperation to keep the family together, she’ll end up raising the kids, working like a horse for three people, and still doing all the laundry, cleaning, and cooking.
Kevin burst into laughter again, but Owen didn’t share his amusement. In truth, he didn’t want to associate with Kevin anymore, but he couldn’t bring himself to cut him off. They had been friends for too long, and Owen didn’t have anyone else.
– You know what you don’t understand about life, Owen? Women have a brain the size of a walnut, and it spins like a weathervane; whichever way the wind blows, that’s where they’ll go. You have to brainwash a woman so thoroughly that she’ll run unquestioningly in whatever direction you point her. And there are only two ways to rope a woman in for good.
– Marry her and get her pregnant. That’s it, she’s not going anywhere. If she’s a decent one, of course.
– But Valerie is definitely not normal. You can’t cook up a scheme with a woman like that, you can’t brainwash her. She thinks like a man.
– But we have to split up one way or another. Now that there’s no money coming from her, I can finally tell her to get lost. She’s useless to me.
– If I could just get her to sell the condo, I could squeeze some cash out of her. That would be a good start, – the man continued, helping his friend slide the cooked meat off the skewers. They kept talking.
But Owen tried his best to steer the conversation in a different direction. He hated listening to all of this. Valerie really was a good person.
Perhaps she was overly headstrong, confident, and independent. It seemed these were the very qualities that irritated Kevin so profoundly in his wife. It wasn’t the first time Kevin had confessed this to his friend, but Owen always tried not to take his words to heart.