Chapter 4: The Phone Call He Didn't Expect Robert to Answer
Sean called Robert at eight the next morning.
I know because Robert called me at eight-fifteen.
"He wanted me to tell him it wasn't enforceable," Robert said.
"I told him it was.
He asked if I was sure.
I told him I'd written it myself and I was quite sure."
"How did he take that?"
"He asked me whose side I was on." A pause.
"I told him I was on the side of the document."
I was sitting at the kitchen table with coffee and the boys' breakfast dishes still in the sink.
Upstairs, I could hear Sean moving around — drawers opening, the shower running, the particular silence of a man who is trying to be very quiet and not quite managing it.
"He's going to push back," I said.
"Of course he is.
He's going to say the agreement was signed under false pretenses.
That you manipulated him."
"And?"
"And I'm going to send him the email chain where he asked me to draft something that would give him legal cover for an open arrangement without triggering divorce proceedings." Robert's voice was dry.
"His words.
His request.
His email address."
I set my coffee down.
"He asked you to draft it?"
"Three weeks before you came to me.
He wanted something that would protect him.
I told him I'd look into it.
Then you came to me with a very different request for a very similar document, and I made a professional decision."
"You didn't tell me."
"You didn't ask.
And it wasn't relevant to what you needed." A brief pause.
"It may be relevant now."
The shower upstairs stopped.
"Send me the email," I said.
"Already in your inbox."
I heard Sean on the stairs.
I put the phone down on the table without ending the call and picked up my coffee cup.
He came into the kitchen in a jacket and tie — dressed for the office, or dressed for something that required looking like he had the situation under control.
He stopped when he saw me at the table.
"You talked to Robert."
"Robert called me," I said.
He opened the refrigerator, looked at nothing inside it, and closed it again.
"He won't budge."
"I know."
"Claire." He turned.
"We have two sons.
We have a house.
We have — ten years.
You're really going to do this over one conversation and a piece of paper?"
"It wasn't one conversation," I said.
"It was three years of conversations.
You stopped hearing them."
"That's not — " He stopped.
Tried again.
"I made mistakes.
I know that.
But this — bringing Daniel into our house, having Robert draft something behind my back — "
"You asked Robert to draft something first," I said.
The kitchen went quiet.
Sean's hand was on the back of a chair.
His knuckles were not quite white but close.
"He told you."
"He didn't have to.
You just did."
He pulled the chair out and sat down.
For a moment he looked at the table between us — the coffee ring from my mug, the boys' cereal bowls, the ordinary morning surface of a marriage that had been breaking for a long time.
"What did you want me to do?" he said.
It came out quieter than I think he intended.
"I wanted you to talk to me.
I wanted you to say you were unhappy instead of deciding I was boring and going looking for a solution that didn't include me."
"I didn't know how."
"You knew how to call a lawyer."
He didn't answer that.
"The boys," he said finally.
"Whatever happens — the boys."
"The boys are my first concern.
They have been my first concern every single day of this marriage, including the days you weren't home to see it."
Something crossed his face.
Not quite shame.
Not quite anger.
Something in between that had no clean name.
"I'm not trying to destroy you," I said.
"I'm not interested in that.
I want a fair settlement, I want the boys to have stability, and I want this done without a war.
That's still possible if you want it to be."
"And Daniel?"
I looked at him steadily.
"That's a separate question."
He stood up.
Straightened his jacket.
Looked at me for a moment with an expression I couldn't fully read — something tired and complicated and too late.
"I'll call Robert back," he said.
He picked up his keys from the counter and walked out.
The front door closed.
Not slammed.
Just closed.
I picked up my phone.
Robert was still on the line.
"I heard," he said.
"Is it going to be clean?"
"Cleaner than most." A pause.
"He's not a bad man, Claire.
He's a foolish one.
There's a difference."
"I know the difference," I said.
"I married him."
I ended the call and sat for a moment in the quiet kitchen.
Then I got up, washed the boys' bowls, and went upstairs to wake my sons for school.
By the time they came down for breakfast, I had made eggs.
By the time they left for school, I was already thinking about what came next.
May you like
But that evening, when I checked my email, I found something I had not been expecting — a message not from Robert, not from Sean, but from an address I didn't recognize, with a subject line that made me read it twice.
*You should know what he promised her.*
