Waiting by Ha Jin

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Every summer Lin Kong returned to Goose Village to divorce his wife, Shuyu.  Together they had appeared at the courthouse in Wujia Town many times, but she had always changed her mind at the last moment when the judge asked if she would accept a divorce.  Year after year, they went to Wujia Town and came back with the same marriage license issued to them by the county's registry office twenty years before.  
        This summer Lin Kong returned with a new letter of recommendation for the divorce, which had been provided for him by the army hospital in Muji City, where he served as a doctor.  Once more he planned to take his wife to the courthouse and end their marriage.  Before he left for home, he had promised Manna Wu, his girlfriend at the hospital, that this time he would try his best to make Shuyu stick to her word after she agreed to a divorce.  
        As an officer, he had a twelve-day leave each year. . . but by now a whole week had passed and he had not yet mentioned a word to his wife about the divorce.  Whenever the subject came to his tongue, he postponed it for another day. . . .   

--From Waiting, a novel by Ha Jin (Vintage, 1999).  The book was a National Book Award winner, a nominee for the Pulitzer Prize, and the winner of the 2000 PEN/Faulkner Award.