Not maybe he didn’t know.
“What do you need?”
I said, “I need a family law recommendation.”
She gave me one.
I called that attorney.
Her name was Patricia.
That same morning, we spoke for an hour.
I took notes.
Patricia said, “You’re going to be fine.”
She said it the way doctors say it when they mean something specific.
Not that everything will be easy, but that you specifically, with what you have, will be okay.
That week, I did 3 things.
First, I had a conversation with my husband, not a fight.
I was too tired for a fight.
And fights were, in my professional assessment, a form of negotiation where both parties perform emotion to gain leverage.
And I wasn’t interested in performing anything anymore.
I sat across from him at the same kitchen table and I said, “I think we both know what’s happening.”
He was quiet for a long time.
Then he said something that I think he believed was an explanation.
Something about how hard the last 2 years had been, how distant I’d been, how the colleague understood his world in a way that I never seemed to want to.
I listened to all of it.
When he finished, I said, “Thank you for being honest.”
