My Husband Took My Fingerprint While I Was Sedated

The divorce papers arrived faster than I expected. Just three days after I left the hospital.

James Sterling had moved quickly. Efficiently. The way my father had promised he would.

I sat in my childhood bedroom, reading through page after page of legal language that essentially said: Michael gets nothing.

No shared assets. No alimony. No claim to anything I’d owned before the marriage.

And because of the attempted fraud, he’d be lucky to walk away without criminal charges.

Eleanor called seventeen times that first week. I blocked her number after the fifth voicemail.

They all said the same thing anyway. How ungrateful I was. How I’d ruined her son’s life. How I’d manipulated the situation.

The irony would have been funny if it wasn’t so pathetic.

Michael’s messages were different. Alternating between threats and desperate pleas.

You’re making a huge mistake

We can work this out

I’ll take you to court

Please, Emma, just talk to me

You’re going to regret this

I forwarded them all to James. Let him deal with the legal implications.

I was done engaging.

My father suggested I stay with him for a while. “Until things settle down.”

I knew he meant until Michael and Eleanor stopped harassing me. Until the divorce was finalized. Until I felt safe again.

I agreed. Not because I was scared—though part of me was—but because being in my old room, surrounded by memories from before Michael, felt healing somehow.

Like returning to a version of myself I’d lost somewhere along the way.

Two weeks after the hospital incident, James called with news.

“The bank completed their fraud investigation.”

I held my breath. “And?”