I sat in the stuffy, airless courtroom and counted. One, two, three… It was a trick they taught us at The Rainbow House, the state-run home where I grew up. When everything inside you is screaming, but you can’t show it, you count, and you breathe. By the time you reach one hundred, you’ll be calm. I had reached three hundred and forty-seven, and the knot in my stomach was still twisted as tight as a hangman’s noose. Across the massive table, my husband Adam’s lawyer, a ruddy-faced man in his fifties wearing a suit that was clearly worth more than my monthly earnings, brandished a folder thick with documents. He had been speaking for twenty-five minutes, his voice practiced and confident, each word another nail in the coffin of my hopes.

“Your honor, let us turn to the facts,” he boomed, unfurling another sheet. “The dental clinic, Bright Smiles, owned by my client, has provided the family with a stable monthly income, averaging between forty to fifty thousand dollars in net profit. The flower shop, Bloom & Bliss, which was managed by the defendant, barely broke even. In some months,” he raised a finger for dramatic effect, “it operated at a loss. Mr. Thompson repeatedly—I stress, repeatedly—invested his own funds to save his wife’s failing enterprise from bankruptcy.”

I listened and stared at the ceiling. In the left corner, the paint was peeling in uneven patches, resembling a map of some forgotten country, or perhaps clouds. As a child, I used to lie on the grass behind the orphanage fence and watch the clouds, imagining they were doors to another life. A life where every child had a mother and a father.

“Ms. Carter,” the judge’s voice brought me back to reality. She was a woman in her fifties with a weary face and deep lines around her eyes, a woman who had seen a thousand families tear each other apart in this very room. “Have you heard the plaintiff’s demands?”

“I have,” I said, straightening up on the hard, unforgiving chair.

“And what is your response? Do you agree that the shop, Bloom & Bliss, is joint marital property and subject to division?”

Adam sat opposite me, leaning back casually in his chair. He was tan, recently returned from a trip to the Caribbean with Laura, the young dental assistant from his clinic. His hair was styled with expensive gel, his shirt a brilliant white, his cufflinks gleaming under the fluorescent lights. He caught my eye and smirked. That smirk said everything: superiority, triumph, and a faint, dismissive contempt. He was already celebrating his victory.

“No,” I said calmly. “I do not agree.”

Adam’s lawyer winced as if he’d been stung. Adam himself twitched an eyebrow. It was a small movement, but I saw it. He hadn’t expected resistance.

“Mrs. Thompson,” his lawyer began, his tone now softer, almost paternal. “Let’s be reasonable. My client is being generous. He is not making a claim on your apartment, though he could. He is not demanding compensation for the funds he invested in your business over the last seven years. He is only asking for a fair division of what was created jointly.”

“Fair?” For the first time in the entire hearing, I raised my voice. I didn’t shout, but it was loud enough to command attention. “Adam, in seventeen years of marriage, have you ever spent more than five consecutive minutes in my shop?”

Adam scowled. “What does that have to do with anything? I gave you the money. Isn’t that enough?”

“You gave me money once,” I said, opening my own folder. It was much thinner than his, but every document was meticulously organized with colored tabs. My lawyer, Lily, a bright woman in her early thirties working nearly pro bono because she believed in my case, had helped me systematize everything. “Seven years ago. The initial down payment for the lease and renovations. Here is the agreement, and here is the receipt. After that,” I pushed the folder forward, “look for yourself. Every lease payment, every inventory purchase, the salary for my florist, Rachel, the utility bills, advertising, packaging materials, vases, ribbons, pots… everything was paid for from the shop’s revenue. From my profits. Do you want me to read the sums aloud? Or will you look for yourselves?”

I handed the folder to the judge. She took it silently, flipping through the pages. Her face remained impassive, but her fingers lingered on several pages longer than necessary. Adam’s lawyer leaned in close to his client, whispering urgently. Adam listened, frowning, then waved him off with an irritated gesture.

“Nevertheless,” the judge said, looking up. “Formally, the business was registered as joint property. Under the law, both spouses have equal rights. Technically, Mr. Thompson can claim half.”

“I understand that,” I nodded. “The law may be on his side. But I am not going to give up Bloom & Bliss without a fight. If he wants it, let him prove his case in court. Let him hire appraisers, experts, witnesses. I will fight for every single penny.”

Adam laughed out loud. It wasn’t a loud laugh, but it was dripping with mockery. “Claire, you’re an intelligent woman. You know this is absurd. I can afford to drag this through the courts for years. I have my clinic, a stable income, the best lawyers. What will you use to pay your legal fees? You might last a month, maybe two. And then what? You’ll sell the shop just to cover the court costs?”

“I will pay with my own money,” I said, looking him directly in the eye. “Money I earned with my own labor. Not yours.”

“For God’s sake, how long can you play this game of pride?” Adam’s voice rose. “I’m offering you a reasonable solution. We sell the shop, split the money, and go our separate ways like civilized people.”

“The shop is not for sale,” I said quietly.

“Why?” Adam slammed his palm on the table. The judge shot him a warning glance. He lowered his voice, but the tension remained thick in the air. “Claire, explain to me, as a person with a higher education, what is the point of clinging to a failing business?”

“It’s not failing,” I said, opening my folder to the correct page. “Here are the reports for the last few years. At first, yes, it was in the red. Then it broke even. And for the past four years, it has shown a stable, growing profit. And you know why you’re not aware of this? Because you never once cared enough to ask. You simply decided that my work was nonsense, a frivolous female pastime. Just flowers, bows, and ribbons.”

Adam was silent, but a flicker of what looked like genuine surprise crossed his face.

“Ms. Carter, Mr. Thompson,” the judge removed her glasses and wiped them with a cloth. “I see that the parties are not ready for a compromise. I propose a thirty-minute recess. Perhaps you can discuss the situation in a calmer setting.”

“I don’t need a recess,” Adam started.

“Neither do I,” I added.

The judge sighed. “Nevertheless, a recess is called. I ask everyone to leave the courtroom.”

The corridor smelled of bleach, old paint, and the ghosts of other people’s tragedies. The linoleum floor creaked under my feet. Lily, my lawyer, nervously fiddled with her pen as we walked to a bench by the window.

“Claire, I have to be honest with you,” she said, sitting beside me and lowering her voice. “He really does have more resources. He can drag this process out for a year, maybe longer. File counterclaims, demand independent appraisals, bring in experts, dispute every number in your reports. That’s a huge amount of money and time. Are you prepared for that?”

“Do I have a choice?” I stared out the window at the gray October sky. The wind whipped the bare branches of the poplar trees.

“There’s always a choice,” Lily said gently. “You could agree to the division. You’d get compensation—not the full value of the shop, of course, but at least something. You could start over. Open another business when this is all settled.”

“Another business,” I repeated. “Do you know what it’s like to start over at forty?”

Lily was silent.

“I grew up in an orphanage,” I said quietly, my gaze still fixed on the window. “It was called The Rainbow House. A pretty name for a gray, concrete building on the outskirts of the city. There were forty-two of us, of all different ages. We were nobody’s children, you understand? We belonged to no one.”

I paused. Lily waited.

“When I turned eighteen, they released me. They gave me a high school diploma, two hundred dollars to get started, and the address of a dormitory where I was assigned a room. A corner in a room shared with three other girls. I found a job at a flower stall in the market. The owner was a bitter woman who yelled at me for every bruised rose and paid me pennies, but I endured it because I loved working with flowers. It was the only thing that made me feel something close to happiness.”

“Three years later, I met Adam. He came to buy a bouquet for his mother’s birthday. I helped him create a beautiful arrangement. He came back a week later, then again, then he asked me out. I fell in love. Not with him, not really. I fell in love with the feeling of being wanted by someone, of not being nobody’s child. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” Lily said softly.

“When he proposed, I accepted immediately. It felt like destiny. He promised we would be a family, that we would have children, a home, happiness. And for seventeen years, I believed him.”

Raindrops began to streak down the windowpane. “And Bloom & Bliss?” Lily asked gently.

“Seven years ago, I found a small space on the ground floor of an old building. Twenty-five square meters. It was filthy, dilapidated, with leaking pipes, but it had a large window facing the sun. I saw it and I knew: this is my place. I persuaded Adam to give me the money for the down payment. He agreed reluctantly, saying it was a foolish idea, but he gave it to me, probably just to get me off his back.”

I smiled, a sad, joyless expression. “I scrubbed that place for three weeks. I scraped the walls, painted, hung wallpaper by myself. Adam never once helped. When I opened, I had no customers for the first week. I stood among the flowers and cried. Then, the first customer came—an elderly woman who wanted a bouquet for her granddaughter’s wedding. I tried so hard, selecting each flower, each sprig. When she left, she gave me a twenty-dollar tip and said, ‘My dear, you have golden hands. You will go far.’”

I wiped away a sudden tear. “And I did go far. The shop started to make a profit. I gained regular customers. People started recommending me for weddings, anniversaries. I hired an assistant, Rachel, a good girl. I felt like I was creating something real, something of my own. For the first time in my life, I felt that I wasn’t nobody’s, that I had my own purpose, my own meaning.”

“And that’s why you don’t want to give up the shop,” Lily finished.

“It’s not just a shop,” I looked her in the eye. “It’s proof that I am worth something. Proof that a child from an orphanage can build something with her own two hands. I will not give it away. Let Adam take it if he can prove his right in a court of law. But I will never, ever gift it to him.”

A door slammed at the end of the corridor. Adam and his lawyer emerged. He lit a cigarette right by the window, ignoring the “No Smoking” sign. A security guard took a step forward, but the lawyer whispered something, and the guard retreated. Money solves everything.

Adam saw me, took a drag, and blew the smoke towards the window. “Stubborn as always,” he threw the words at me. “They must have taught you that at the orphanage. To stand your ground until the end, even when it’s obvious to everyone that you’ve already lost.”

I slowly stood up from the bench and walked closer. “Adam, do you remember how we met?”

He smirked. “At the flower market. You were standing in a stall wearing some ridiculous pink apron, smiling like a doll. I thought, she’s pretty, simple, no pretensions, no high demands. Just what I need.”

“Just what you needed,” I repeated slowly. “Convenient, quiet, grateful for any attention. You weren’t looking for a wife, Adam. You were looking for a comfortable accessory for your successful life.”

“So what if I was?” he shrugged, flicking ash onto the floor. “I gave you everything you have: an apartment, the money for the shop, a status, a respectable last name. Without me, you’d still be selling flowers at that market stall, freezing for pennies.”

“Perhaps,” I nodded. “But that stall would have been mine. And you built Bright Smiles on my back. I worked twelve-hour days without a day off so you could invest in expanding your clinic. I kept silent when you were ‘in meetings’ until three in the morning. I pretended not to notice the women’s perfume on your shirts. I didn’t even protest when you brought your assistant, Laura, to our New Year’s party and introduced her as a ‘colleague.’”

He threw his cigarette butt on the floor and crushed it with his shoe. “So, this is revenge for Laura? For me not being a saint? Claire, let’s be honest. Men are built this way. We need variety. You’re a grown woman; you should understand that.”

“You never respected me, Adam,” I corrected him calmly. “To you, I was an object. Useful, convenient, but an object. And you know what? It’s my own fault. I allowed you to see me that way because I was afraid of being alone again. Afraid of becoming nobody’s child once more. But do you know what I’ve realized over these last six months? It’s better to be alone than to be nobody while standing next to someone. One is a choice. The other is a sentence.”

Adam sneered. “Philosophy for the poor. Comforting yourself with pretty words? Fine. Let’s see how long your philosophy lasts when the legal bills start arriving.” He turned and walked back toward the courtroom.

When we returned, the judge was already at her bench. “Are the parties ready to continue?”

“Ready,” Adam’s lawyer said.

“Yes,” I nodded.

“Very well. Mr. Thompson, do you still insist on the division of the flower shop, Bloom & Bliss?”

“I insist,” Adam said clearly.

“Ms. Carter, are you still in disagreement?”

I opened my mouth to say yes, but a sudden, painful image flashed through my mind. A memory. A phone call from yesterday. An unfamiliar woman’s voice. “Ms. Carter? This is the Oak Creek Hospice. Your mother, Laura Logan, would like to see you. She doesn’t have much time left.”

A mother I hadn’t seen in forty years. The woman who had abandoned me at the hospital and vanished. The woman who was now dying and had suddenly remembered she had a daughter.

I took a deep, shuddering breath. “No,” I said.

Lily’s head snapped toward me. “What?”

“No,” Adam repeated, confused. “I don’t understand.”

“I’ve changed my mind,” I said slowly, weighing each word. “I am prepared to relinquish all claims to the Bloom & Bliss flower shop, entirely in favor of Adam Thompson.”

The silence in the room was so thick you could hear the old fluorescent lights humming.

“Repeat that,” Adam’s eyes widened.

“I am relinquishing the shop,” I enunciated clearly. “Take it. It’s your victory.”

And then, Adam laughed. At first, it was a quiet, disbelieving chuckle. Then it grew louder, and soon he was clutching his stomach, rocking in his chair, roaring with laughter until tears streamed down his face.

“I knew it!” he slapped the table. “I told you! I knew you would break! All that pride, all that drama, all those pretty words about ‘my business, my life.’ And in the end? You gave up. How pathetic. I can see right through you, Claire.”

His lawyer nodded smugly. Lily turned pale and grabbed my arm under the table. “Claire, what’s happening?”

“Silence in the court!” the judge’s gavel struck the wood.

“Ms. Carter,” the judge looked at me intently. “Do you understand the gravity of your decision? You are relinquishing an asset valued, according to preliminary estimates, at no less than three hundred thousand dollars. Is this a considered step?”

“It is,” I said firmly. “But I have one condition.”

Adam stopped laughing. “What condition?” he asked suspiciously.

I took a sealed white envelope from my old handbag. “I want the division of property to be finalized today. Immediately. I am ready to sign all the necessary documents right here, right now. In return, I demand that the divorce and all legal procedures be expedited.”

“Why the rush?” Adam frowned. “What’s in the envelope?”

“My personal circumstances,” I said, handing the envelope to the judge. “They explain my decision.”

The judge opened the envelope, pulled out a sheet of paper with a hospital’s blue letterhead, and scanned the lines. Her expression flickered. It was barely perceptible, but I saw it. She looked up, and in her eyes was something new: compassion. Understanding.

“Mr. Thompson,” she said, carefully folding the paper. “I strongly recommend you accept your former wife’s offer without any additional conditions. Your position in this situation looks extremely… unethical.”

“Why?” Adam jumped up. “What does it say? Show me!”

“This is private medical information,” the judge shook her head. “I cannot disclose it. But I can say this: your insistence on this matter is not a good look.”

“Claire,” Adam turned to me. “What is it? Are you sick?”

I remained silent. He took a step toward the judge’s bench. “I have a right to know!”

“No,” I said, taking the envelope from the judge’s hand. “You don’t. You’re getting everything you wanted. The shop. Your freedom. Your victory. Isn’t that enough?”

He stared at me, suspicion and calculation warring in his eyes. This wasn’t concern; it was morbid curiosity. “This is a trick,” he said slowly. “You’re planning something.”

“I’m not planning anything,” I replied, my voice weary. “I just want to end this. To divorce, divide the property, and never see you again.”

The documents were signed in silence. Adam’s signature was a confident, arrogant scrawl.

Mine was slow and deliberate. Claire Anne Carter. For the first time in seventeen years, using my own name.

“It’s done,” the judge said. “The divorce will be registered within five business days.”

Adam snatched his copy of the papers. “Finally,” he muttered, not even looking at me. “Free of that dead weight.” He was the first one out the door.

I sat motionless, staring at my trembling hands.

“Ms. Carter,” the judge called out softly after everyone had left. “You are a very strong woman. I wish you the best of luck.”

Outside, a cold October rain was falling. Lily caught up with me at the courthouse exit. “Claire, what was in that envelope?”

I stopped and looked up at the gray sky. “A medical report from the hospice. My mother is dying. Cancer. The final stage. She doesn’t have much time left, and she asked to see me.”

“My God,” Lily breathed. “I am so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” I managed a weak smile. “I don’t even know her. She abandoned me at the hospital. I grew up in the orphanage, and not once in forty years did she ever try to find me. And now, at the end, she remembers she has a daughter.”

“And you’re going to see her?”

“I have to,” I said. “Because if I don’t, I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering. And the court battle over the shop… Adam would have dragged it out for years, out of principle, out of greed. I don’t have that kind of time. I might have a little time to meet my mother while she can still speak. So, I chose what was more important.”

Lily gave me a short, firm hug. “You know, I admire you,” she said. “Truly.”

The hospice was in an old brick building on the edge of the city. Inside, it smelled of antiseptic, laundered linen, and something else… hopelessness. A stout nurse at the reception desk directed me to the third floor. “Just don’t stay too long,” she warned. “She’s very weak.”

The woman on the hospital bed was tiny and emaciated, her skin a waxy yellow, her eyes sunken. Her hair was sparse and gray.

“Claire?” Her voice was a hoarse, weak whisper.

“Yes,” I said, approaching the bed. “It’s me.”

She slowly turned her head. A ghost of a smile touched her lips. “My God, you look just like me when I was young. The same eyes.”

I sat on the chair beside the bed, silent.

“Thank you for coming,” she whispered. “I thought you wouldn’t.”

“Why did you leave me?” The question escaped before I could stop it.

She closed her eyes. “I was so young,” she finally said. “I was in my final year of medical school. Your father was a professor there. Andrew. He was married. When I told him I was pregnant, he gave me money for an… procedure. I refused. I thought I could handle it. But after you were born, I panicked. I was a single mother with no degree, no job, no money. I was terrified. So I signed the papers and ran away. Like a coward.”

“And all these years?” I asked. “You never once tried to find me?”

“I tried,” she whispered. “A few years later. I went to the orphanage, but they told me the records were sealed. That a mother who gives up her child has no right to contact them. I could have fought it, but I was afraid again. Afraid you would hate me. So, I watched from a distance. I found out when you got out, when you married, when you opened your shop. I was so happy for you. So proud that you’d made it.”

“And my father?” I asked. “Andrew. Who is he?”

“Dr. Andrew Logan,” she coughed. “A dentist. A very good one. He has his own practice, a family. He doesn’t know about you. I told him I’d had the procedure.”

I stood up. “I need to think.”

“Claire, wait,” she reached out a frail hand. “I don’t deserve forgiveness. I’m not asking for it. Just… come back sometimes. While I’m still here. Please.”

“I’ll think about it,” I said, and left.

On the way out, I called Rachel, my assistant. “It’s over,” I told her. “I relinquished the shop. It belongs to Adam now.”

There was a stunned silence. “But… why?”

“Long story. Rachel, if Adam becomes the new owner, will you stay?”

“No,” she said firmly. “He’s arrogant and cheap. You know how he talks to me, like I’m a servant. I’m quitting.”

“Then quit today,” I said. “Right now. Don’t wait for him to arrive.”

After hanging up, my phone rang again. An unknown number.

“Claire?” a man’s voice asked. “It’s Dennis. Dennis Miller.”

I froze. Dennis. From The Rainbow House. He was three years older, my quiet protector.

“How did you get my number?”

“It took some searching. Val, I need to talk to you. Can we meet?”

“What’s wrong?”

He paused. “My wife passed away six months ago. Cancer. I have a daughter, Katie. She’s nine. I’m not managing well on my own. I own a small chain of coffee shops, and work is consuming me. Katie’s withdrawn. A therapist said she needs a stable female presence. I remembered you. I thought… maybe you could help. Just with some advice.”

“Dennis,” I said, closing my eyes. “My own life is falling apart. I just got divorced, lost my business, and found out my mother is dying.”

“Maybe that’s exactly why we should meet,” he said softly. “Two graduates of The Rainbow House whose lives have gone sideways. Maybe it’ll be easier together.”

For the first time all day, a genuine smile touched my lips. “Okay, Dennis. Let’s meet.”