Chapter 5: The Lawyer, the List, and What He'd Hidden
Her name was Patricia Osei, and she had been recommended to me by a woman in my neighborhood whose divorce had been, by all accounts, handled with precision and without sentiment.
I sat across from her in her office the next morning while the kids were at school and my husband was at work, presumably telling Diane what had happened, presumably making plans of his own.
Patricia had a yellow legal pad in front of her and a pen she hadn't uncapped yet.
"Tell me everything," she said.
I told her.
The restaurant.
The condition.
The phone.
The email.
The eight months.
His admission.
His suggestion of counseling.
My response.
She listened without interrupting.
When I finished, she uncapped the pen.
"Do you have documentation of the messages?" she asked.
"I took screenshots before I closed the laptop."
"Good.
Send those to me today." She wrote something.
"Joint accounts?"
"Two.
A checking and a savings."
"Do you have access to both?"
"Yes."
"Do you know the approximate balances?"
I gave her the numbers I'd checked that morning.
She wrote them down.
"Any accounts in his name only that you're aware of?"
I paused.
"There's one.
A brokerage account.
He set it up about three years ago.
He said it was for retirement."
"Do you know the institution?"
"I have the statements.
They come to the house.
He stopped opening them in front of me about a year ago."
Patricia looked up from her pad.
"Bring me those statements."
"I already photographed them this morning."
She set her pen down.
She looked at me the way someone looks at a person they've decided they can work with.
"You came prepared," she said.
"I had a long night."
"Good.
That will help us." She picked the pen back up.
"I want to be direct with you.
Depending on what's in those brokerage statements, there may be more here than a straightforward divorce.
If assets have been moved or concealed during the marriage, that changes the picture significantly."
"What do you mean by moved?"
"I mean that sometimes, when a spouse is planning an exit, they begin quietly repositioning money.
Transferring funds.
Underreporting income.
Shifting assets into accounts the other spouse doesn't know about." She paused.
"The timing of his request — the open marriage proposal — combined with an eight-month relationship and a brokerage account he's been keeping private — I want to look at all of it before we make any assumptions."
I sat with that for a moment.
"You think he was already planning to leave," I said.
"I think it's worth finding out," she said.
"Do you have access to your joint tax returns from the last three years?"
"I filed them.
I have copies."
"Send me those too."
I left her office an hour later with a list of documents to gather and a retainer agreement in my bag.
The morning was bright and cold.
I sat in my car in the parking garage for a moment before starting the engine.
Eight months.
The same eight months he'd been seeing Diane.
The same eight months the brokerage statements had stopped being opened in front of me.
I thought about the way he'd said it the night before.
It started as nothing.
A professional connection.
I thought about what Patricia had said.
Sometimes, when a spouse is planning an exit.
I started the car.
That afternoon, while sorting through the filing cabinet in the home office we shared, I found something I hadn't been looking for.
It was tucked behind the hanging folders at the back of the bottom drawer, inside a plain manila envelope with no label.
It was a lease agreement.
An apartment.
Signed in his name.
Dated four months ago.
I stood in the middle of the office holding it.
He hadn't been planning to ask for an open marriage.
He had been planning to leave.
He'd just wanted my blessing first so the exit would be cleaner.
My phone buzzed.
A text from him.
*Home by seven.
Should we talk more tonight?*
I set the lease down on the desk.
I photographed every page.
May you like
Then I texted back: *Sure.
See you then.*
