Chapter 1

"Azalea, I divorce you. From this moment, you are no longer my wife!"

Reza's voice cracked through the living room like a thunderclap, splitting the air still heavy with camphor and jasmine from the funeral wreaths. The words left his lips without hesitation—cold, final, irreversible.

Azalea had been kneeling on a thin prayer rug since dawn, still wrapped in her white prayer garment, her fingers working through a strand of prayer beads as she recited supplications for her late mother-in-law. At his words, her hands went slack. The beads slipped free and scattered across the floor, rolling away like the last fragments of her dignity.

She lifted her gaze.

Reza stood rigid before her, jaw set, eyes flat. No grief. No remorse. Not even a tremor. The man who had once trembled while speaking his wedding vows now looked at her as if she were a stranger.

The room fell silent. The mourners who had been chanting prayers for the deceased exchanged uneasy glances. Whispers hissed through the crowd, thin and cutting.

"Reza, what the hell are you doing?" The neighborhood chief, who had been helping serve guests, slammed his hand on the table.

"You don't throw around a divorce pronouncement like that." Usman, the most respected imam in the community, fixed Reza with a withering glare.

Reza took a short breath. "I'm divorcing Azalea because I have my reasons."

His tone was calm. Far too calm for something this cruel.

Every eye in the room turned to him. Azalea felt dozens of stares boring into her back. For three years, everyone here had known her as the obedient wife, the patient daughter-in-law. She was the one who had bathed Rosidah when the old woman became fully paralyzed. The one who changed her diapers. The one who swallowed her nausea while cleaning infected wounds. The one whose back seized from lifting that frail body alone, night after night, without complaint.

And now, on the seventh day after her mother-in-law's death, she was being divorced.

"Tell us," the chief's wife demanded, her voice shaking with barely contained fury. "What possible reason could you have for divorcing Lea?"

Reza glanced at Azalea, then spoke flatly. "Azalea is barren. We've been married three years, and she still hasn't gotten pregnant."

The words hit her chest like a stone dropped from a great height. Her face drained of color. Her lips trembled.

"How was I supposed to get pregnant?" Azalea's voice came out quiet but clear enough for everyone to hear. "For three years, we lived apart. You stayed in the city and barely came home. I was here, taking care of your mother."

Tears spilled down her cheeks before she could stop them. She wasn't defending herself—just stating the truth.

The whispers grew louder.

"Maybe Lea was just being used all along…"

"Poor thing…"

Reza scoffed. "Excuses are still excuses. The fact is, you haven't given me a child."

"How dare you, Reza!" The chief's wife could no longer hold back. "You married Lea just so she'd nurse your sick mother! And the moment your mother dies, you throw her away?"

Usman shook his head slowly. "A woman who hasn't conceived isn't necessarily infertile—that's God's domain. Have you even been to a doctor? Have you fulfilled your duties as a husband?"

Reza's expression didn't change.

Azalea stared at the man she had married. Once, she had fallen in love with his simplicity. With his small promises of a peaceful home. With the way he had held her hand under an umbrella during the first rain after their wedding. Now all of it felt like a dream that had never really existed.

"Why are you calling me barren without a single medical exam?" she asked, her voice fracturing.

"No point. Just a waste of money," Reza snapped. "You think earning a living is easy? All you do is sit around the house—what would you know about hard work?"

That hurt worse than the divorce itself.

"Sit around the house?"

Azalea wanted to laugh, but all that came out was a strangled sob. She was the one who rose before dawn to prepare meals for a mother-in-law who couldn't sit up on her own. She was the one who carried that frail body to the bathroom. She was the one who fought off sleep on the nights she had to change IV lines or clean up vomit.

"God forgive us!" The chief's wife clutched her chest. "A husband's duty is to provide! A wife is not a burden!"

"Don't act like your wife is an obstacle to your livelihood," Usman added firmly. "The ease you've enjoyed may well be because of her prayers."

But Reza would not bend. "The divorce has been spoken. I won't take it back."

Final.

Azalea closed her eyes. Her chest tightened until the air felt insufficient. Three years of devotion, ended by a single sentence.

She remembered the nights she had waited for Reza to come home, only to hear him say he was tired before falling asleep without another word. She remembered swallowing her longing, suppressing her need to be a wife in the fullest sense, because his mother's condition made it impossible for them to live together.

She remembered when Reza had told her: "Be patient, Lea. Mom needs you more right now."

And she had obeyed.

"Fine." Azalea finally spoke. Her voice sounded calmer than anything she felt inside. "I accept your divorce."

The room held its breath.

"But remember," she continued, meeting Reza's eyes without flinching, "God doesn't sleep. Everything you've done to me will have its reckoning. Just as everything I did for your mother these past three years will have its reward."

Her hands trembled as she wiped her tears. But she forced herself to stand. For the first time since this began, her spine was straight.

"Since you're the one filing for divorce, you can handle the court proceedings yourself," Azalea said, her voice steady now. "Allow me to leave this house during the waiting period."

"Go wherever you want," Reza answered without a care. "I'm selling this house anyway."

Azalea froze.

This house. The house where she had learned to be a wife. The house where she had cried silently in the kitchen. The house where she had held her mother-in-law's body close—a woman who could no longer speak but gazed at Azalea with glistening eyes, as if trying to say thank you.

Now it would be sold. Just like her, discarded as though she no longer held any value.

Without another word, Azalea walked to the bedroom. She removed her prayer garment slowly. Her hand brushed the bed they had shared—though his side had been empty far more often than not. She pulled out a small suitcase. There wasn't much to pack. A few changes of clothes, her Quran, and an old photograph from their wedding day.

In the photo, Reza was smiling warmly. Azalea studied it for a long moment. Then, with trembling hands, she slipped it into the nightstand drawer. She couldn't bring herself to take it.

When she returned to the living room, suitcase in hand, the women embraced her one by one. Tears broke loose.

"Stay strong, sweetheart."

"We know you did your best."

"You are a strong woman."

The chief's wife held her longest. "You will regret this for the rest of your life, Reza," she declared, loud enough for the whole room to hear, her eyes blazing. "For divorcing a wife this faithful."

"Amen!" several women chorused.

"This is my business!" Reza shot back. "Stay out of it!"

Azalea didn't look back. She stepped through the doorway. The late afternoon sky hung low and gray. A breeze caught the edge of her white headscarf. Every step felt impossibly heavy, but she knew that if she stopped now, she would collapse.

In the front yard, she paused one final time and glanced over her shoulder. The house held memories both bitter and sweet. But now, all of it was over.

In her heart, she whispered: Oh God, if all this time I was tested for my patience, then give me strength now for my departure.

The tears returned. With halting but resolute steps, Azalea walked away from the house, not knowing where she would go, not knowing what tomorrow would bring. She knew only one thing: today, she was no longer a wife. And her life had just been shattered by a single sentence spoken without love.

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