Chapter 9: What the Discovery Found
The formal discovery process took six weeks.
Patricia had warned me it would be uncomfortable.
She was right.
Every account, every email, every transfer laid open on a table and examined by people who had no stake in any of it except the legal outcome.
What they found was worse than I had expected, and I had expected quite a lot.
Trevor had moved money in three separate transfers, not one.
The first, nine weeks before the vacation, had gone to Gerald Fitch.
The second, four weeks later, had gone into a personal savings account in his name only.
The third — and this was the one that made Patricia set down her pen and look at the ceiling for a moment — had gone directly into a joint account that Trevor had opened with Dana Marsh six weeks before my C-section.
A joint account.
While we were still married.
While I was thirty-three weeks pregnant.
"He was building a life," I said when Patricia told me.
"He was," she said.
"He wasn't having an affair.
He was relocating."
"That's an accurate description," she said.
"And it's exactly the framing we'll use."
Patrice Okafor was deposed on a Tuesday.
I wasn't present, but Patricia called me afterward.
"She was excellent," Patricia said.
"Calm, specific, consistent.
She remembered the date of the phone call, the approximate time, the exact phrases he used.
Gerald Fitch tried twice to rattle her and she didn't move."
"Did he threaten her?"
"He implied that her position at the company could be affected if she was seen as having violated workplace confidentiality.
She looked at him and said that she had witnessed a private phone call in a shared hallway and had not signed any agreement prohibiting her from reporting what she heard." Patricia paused.
"She had clearly thought about that answer in advance."
"She has two kids," I said.
"She came prepared."
"She did."
The deposition of Trevor himself happened the following week.
I was not present for that either.
But Patricia's notes were detailed.
He had confirmed the three transfers.
He had confirmed the joint account with Dana.
He had confirmed that Gerald Fitch had been retained using marital funds.
He had confirmed that he had known about Dana's pregnancy before the vacation.
Under direct questioning, he had also confirmed the recording.
Confirmed that the words were his.
Confirmed that he had known I was unaware of his plans.
Gerald Fitch had tried to reframe each confirmation as a communication failure, a marriage in distress, two people who had grown apart.
Patricia had let him talk.
Then she had placed the handwritten list — the one from the suitcase lining — on the table.
*D.M.
— after finalization.*
"He looked at it for a long time," Patricia told me.
"Then he said he'd written it during a moment of confusion.
Gerald Fitch actually put his hand over his eyes."
I laughed.
It surprised me.
It was the first time I had laughed in six weeks.
"What happens now?" I said.
"Now Gerald Fitch asks for a settlement meeting," Patricia said.
"And this time, we say yes."
The settlement meeting was held at Patricia's office.
Trevor and Gerald Fitch on one side of the table.
Patricia and I on the other.
Trevor looked at me when he came in.
I looked back.
There was nothing hostile in it.
There was also nothing left.
Gerald Fitch opened with an offer.
It was low.
Patricia didn't react.
She opened her own folder and began to speak.
She outlined the three transfers.
The joint account with Dana.
The retainer paid from marital funds.
Patrice Okafor's deposition.
The recording.
The handwritten list.
Then she outlined what we were asking for.
Gerald Fitch conferred with Trevor in a low voice.
Trevor's jaw was tight.
"That's not reasonable," Fitch said.
"It's entirely reasonable given the documented dissipation of marital assets," Patricia said.
"If you'd prefer, we can let a judge decide what's reasonable."
Another low conference.
Trevor looked up.
"The house," he said.
"She can have the house."
"She already has the house," Patricia said.
"We're discussing the accounts."
By the end of the meeting, we had an agreement.
The marital home.
Primary custody of the twins, with Trevor having scheduled visitation.
Child support at the figure Patricia had named.
Reimbursement of the funds transferred to Gerald Fitch's retainer from marital assets.
A formal acknowledgment, in writing, of the timeline of events.
Gerald Fitch shook Patricia's hand at the door.
He did not shake mine.
Trevor stopped at the doorway.
"The girls' names," he said.
"Have you decided?"
"Yes," I said.
He waited.
"Eleanor and June," I said.
Something moved across his face.
Eleanor had been his grandmother's name.
He had mentioned it once, early in the pregnancy, and I had remembered.
"Thank you," he said quietly.
"They deserve to know where they come from," I said.
"All of it.
When they're old enough."
He nodded.
And he left.
Patricia closed the door and turned to me.
"It's done," she said.
I sat in the chair across from her empty desk and looked at my hands.
"It doesn't feel the way I thought it would," I said.
"It rarely does," she said.
She sat down.
"What does it feel like?"
I thought about it.
"Quiet," I said.
"Like a door closing that had been open too long."
May you like
She nodded.
"That's usually what done feels like."
