Chapter 8: What Fair Actually Looks Like
The next four months were not easy.
Daniel hired an attorney who spent the first six weeks challenging everything — the tablet evidence, the beneficiary change, the hotel receipts.
His attorney sent letters.
Patricia responded to every one.
In the third month, Daniel's attorney made an offer.
I read it at Patricia's desk on a Tuesday afternoon.
"He's proposing to keep the retirement account in full," Patricia said.
"In exchange, he offers you the house outright and five years of support payments."
"The retirement account has the beneficiary change."
"Yes.
His position is that he'll revert the designation as part of the agreement."
"And if I say no?"
"Then we go to mediation.
Possibly litigation." She looked at me steadily.
"The retirement account is substantial.
But so is the house.
And the support payments, over five years, are not insignificant."
I thought about it for three days.
I thought about the children changing schools.
About the neighborhood they knew.
About the bedroom my daughter had painted herself, pale yellow with white trim, on a Saturday last spring when Daniel had been in a hotel with Kayla.
I called Patricia on Thursday morning.
"I want the house and the support payments," I said.
"But I want the retirement account split as of the date of the beneficiary change, not today's value.
He's had eleven months of growth on money that was marital property when he redirected it."
Patricia was quiet for a moment.
"That's a strong position."
"Is it a reasonable one?"
"It's very reasonable." A pause.
"I'll send the counteroffer this afternoon."
Daniel's attorney came back in four days.
They agreed.
The signing happened on a Wednesday morning in a conference room I had never been in before.
Daniel sat across the table from me with his attorney beside him.
Patricia sat beside me.
A mediator sat at the head of the table.
Daniel looked tired.
He had lost weight he hadn't needed to lose.
He was wearing a jacket I didn't recognize, and for a strange moment I tried to remember the last time I had bought him a piece of clothing and couldn't.
We signed seventeen pages.
When it was done, his attorney shook Patricia's hand.
Daniel stood up and looked at me.
"I hope you know I never wanted to hurt you," he said.
I looked at him across the conference table.
"I know," I said.
"I don't think you thought about what you wanted to do to me at all.
That was the problem."
He nodded once.
Then he picked up his jacket and walked out.
I sat for a moment after he left.
Patricia put the signed copies in her folder.
"It's done," she said.
"It's done," I said.
Outside, it was an ordinary Wednesday.
Cars in the parking structure.
A coffee cart on the corner.
People walking past who had no idea what had just happened in the fourth floor conference room.
I stood on the sidewalk and called my sister.
"It's signed," I said when she picked up.
She didn't say anything for a second.
Then: "Come over.
I'll make lunch."
"I have to get the kids at three."
"You have time.
Come over."
I got in the car and drove to my sister's house, and she made soup and toast and we sat at her kitchen table and talked for two hours about everything and nothing, and at one point she reached across and squeezed my hand and didn't say a word, and I didn't cry until then, and then I cried for about four minutes, and then I ate the rest of my soup.
I picked the kids up at three.
Lily had a permission slip for a field trip.
My son had lost a tooth and wanted to know exactly how much the tooth fairy was currently paying.
"Adjusted for inflation," I said, "I'd say two dollars."
"That's not very much."
"Inflation works both ways," I said.
"Sometimes it goes down."
He considered this very seriously.
I drove home.
Our home.
My home now, on paper, on the deed, in every way that counted.
I made pasta for dinner again because it was easy and they both liked it, and we ate together at the kitchen table, and Lily told a joke that didn't quite make sense but was very committed, and my son laughed anyway, and I laughed too.
After they were in bed, I poured one glass of wine.
Set the second one back in the cabinet.
Sat down at the kitchen table in the quiet.
The house made its small sounds around me.
The refrigerator.
A branch against the window.
My son shifting in his sleep upstairs.
I sat there for a long time and didn't feel the need to do anything at all.
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*Some people spend years carrying a life that was never equally shared.
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