"Madam, I was asking about what we can do for you, ma?"
"What…oh" Reyona swallowed hard as she thought "So, that was why she was looking at me like that?" she wondered as she tuned out the question.
"Get it together, Rey," she said to herself as she answered the lady.
"I will like to talk to Mr. Gibson. I already had a prior discussion with him.
"Oh, okay, ma. Which of the Gibsons, ma?" the lady asked politely.
"Whi…You know what? let me just give him a call."
Reyona was directed to the man's office in no time. He stood up to greet her as she entered, and Reyona went straight to business.
"I want the divorce papers drawn as soon as possible," she stated simply.
"As I said earlier, ma. The cause for a divorce would contribute to" He lost his train of thought when Reyona took a tissue paper out of her bag, and she began to gently rub off the makeup on that part of her face.
Gibson's affable face changed as he saw her face, and she tried not to wince as she rubbed at it. He had dealt with a lot of divorce cases and knew what bruises like that meant.
So by this time, Reyona had stopped rubbing at her face, and she asked, "Is this reason enough?"
He readily said, "Oh, yes."
*************
Reyona stoically went through the process of having her pictures taken.
She sat with no expression as Gibson arranged to have the firm's photographer take her picture.
In no time, it was over.
All the details they needed to serve her husband with a divorce petition had been taken.
Gibson assured her that her husband would be wise to comply with the terms of the divorce as fast as possible.
Reyona told him to make a good case without adding the case of the hitting to it yet.
She had a feeling that Thomas might want to dispute the divorce, but she still held out a little hope that he would be sensible enough to let her go.
After all, if the case of hitting her got to court, it wouldn't only hasten the divorce proceedings; it would even land him in jail.
Reyona did not want him in jail.
Not because she still felt any empathy for him, but because of the children that she couldn't stop thinking about.
They were already separated from their mother because of her.
Reyona did not want to be a reason why they would lose their father too.
She just wanted it to be over.
She wanted the lie she had lived for ten years to stop glaring at her every time she turned.
Gibson promised to hasten the procedure and assured her that her husband would be served the petition before the end of the following day.
When asked about assets separation, Gibson was surprised when Reyona told him that she owned the home they lived in.
She owned their vacation villa in Malibu as well.
Thomas Camry was the only thing he had bought.
The three other cars they share were all bought by Reyona.
Reyona didn't bother adding the two businesses that she bankrolled for his startups.
After all, the money was already back where it belonged.
She left Gibson's office lighter than she had entered it.
After carefully remaking her face in the firm's powder room, she went on a long drive.
She was still working on autopilot when she decided to call Toria back.
Her sister had called her that morning, but Reyona couldn't pick up the call because she knew that Toria would detect that something was wrong.
Her sister always had a way of teasing out whatever she was trying to keep under wraps.
She was not sure she could deal with her sister's concerned questions that morning.
Not especially when she still had the lawyer's meeting in front of her.
So, she had simply sent Toria a message that she would be very busy that morning and would get back to her later.
Listless and feeling like a branch whose leaves had been stripped mercilessly, Reyona felt she might as well get the call over with.
She found a quiet park and took a detour.
Then she just sat in her car, taking in the calmness around her.
The calmness was alien to what was going on inside her.
She had a feeling she couldn't put a name.
She was not angry.
She was not grieving.
She was not even feeling the pain of tossing away the dreams of a decade with a single signature.
She was just... numb.
The cascading emotions inside her seemed to be separate from her sense of feeling.
She just wanted to be left alone by the whole world.
As if to remind her just how impossible that was, her phone vibrated suddenly.
She was jolted out of her no-thought state and looked at the caller ID.
It was Toria.
Reyona looked around like she just realised the reason she was seated in a park far away from her normal route.
She was suddenly bone-deep tired, and picking up the call was the last thing she wanted to do.
The call disconnected, and it started ringing almost immediately again.
"Toria," Reyona whispered in a tone that seemed alien to her ears.
She knew her sister wouldn't stop calling now.
She knew something was wrong from what she saw yesterday, and now she would be more worried because Reyona was avoiding her calls.
So, Reyona picked up the call.
"Rey, where are you?" Toria asked anxiously. "You said you would be very busy, but you are not even in your office, and your assistant said you have not been around today. What is going on?"
Reyona tried to inject a bit of life into her voice as she said, "I am fine, Toria. I am just handling some businesses outside."
"Outside, where? Why are you sounding like that, Rey?" Toria asked insistently.
So much for the cheery tone.
"Nothing, I am just..." Reyona sighed as she saw no way around it.