“You dropped out to help at home,” Ross said.
“I wasn’t sure I was on the right path anyway,” Adele said. “My plan was kind of falling apart. It just didn’t feel right anymore. Dropping out to help at home gave me a break to think about things. And then it just sort of stretched out.”
“That must have been frightening for you,” Ross said.
“You have no idea,” Adele said.
“And was Justine supportive?”
“She was amazing. At that time, it was the closest we’d ever been. Of course, I was so needy. I felt like such a screwup and failure. But she reassured me that it was all right, that I should take all the time I needed, and it had nothing to do with my parents needing me. We could have gotten help from elsewhere. Except I was there and I wanted to be useful. So...”
“And you didn’t want to go back to school?”
“Not until I was sure of things. My parents were disappointed. But Justine supported my decision and kept my parents cool.”
“Eight years of taking care of invalid parents is a hard job, especially for such a long time...”
“Once you commit to something like that, it’s impossible to change your mind,” Adele said. “You don’t wake up one day and say to your marginally conscious mother, ‘I think I’ll go back to school now. I’ll try to find someone to come in and wash and feed you.’ Imagine how terrifying that would be to someone who has lived on the fringes of understanding for years. I just knew I was in for the duration. I knew my mother’s care was good.”
“Did you ever turn her care over to others? To home health practitioners?”
“Sure, for an hour here and there. I observed, I was present the first few times, I monitored afterward like a detective. That’s how we got by.”
Ross opened her top drawer and pulled out a printed list of names. She slid it across the desk to Adele. “Here are the best counselors I know. They’ve helped people in all sorts of transitions, not just displaced or reentry clients. One of them was my counselor for a long time. I’m not telling you which one. You’re free to give this list to your sister if you like. A little emotional support could really help. Professional emotional support.”
“Thank you,” Adele said. “I’ll encourage that idea.”
“Adele, I think you should consider that, as well.”
“What?”
“Counseling.”
“I don’t have a lot of time, what with my job, my new exercise and diet program, trying to get the house in shape...”
“These counselors keep all kinds of hours.”
“I’ll think it over.”
“Or, you can use one of our counselors,” Ross said.
“For myself? Wouldn’t that be a conflict of interest?” she asked.
“How so? We all have the same objective here. We rely on each other regularly—use each other as sounding boards, help each other clear out the cobwebs. I’ve been here a long time. My husband used to beat me, then left me with four kids under the age of ten. I got on my feet with a lot of support from this office, got my degree and my master’s in counseling and have worked here since. Now if I have a problem, I talk to Fran or one of the other counselors. And sometimes they talk to me.”
“And that’s okay?” Adele asked.
“If you’re comfortable,” she said. “If you feel the chemistry is right. On this, you have to trust your instincts. Your gut. No judgment from anyone on that—you talk to the person you trust and feel safe with. That choice is all on you.”
Adele felt like she could cry, she was so grateful. Instead, she composed herself and said, “That’s very generous of you, Ross. Thank you.”
“It’s what we do,” she said. “Getting people on their feet—it’s a very rewarding mission.”
* * *
The first week in June, Justine received an email. Her divorce was final. She had all the finalized and notarized documents saved to her cloud account and printed out and filed in her locked desk drawer. She gave copies to Scott. Her car was now registered in her name only; she had all new charge accounts. Their financial management team had immediately separated, divided and created new accounts and trusts for each of them. The custody situation was left as joint unless one or both of their daughters made a decision otherwise—they were entitled to their own choices since they were both over sixteen.
After receiving the notice of the divorce, she cried all day. She asked herself for the millionth time, How did this happen to us? She had trusted him, and not only had she been wrong to, she didn’t think she’d ever trust a man again. If there was anything more sad than realizing you no longer loved someone, it was realizing you had not one ounce of respect for the person you had trusted with your love for so many years.
At the end of the day, her face puffy and chafed, she had had it. She was done.
“I spent the day at home, alone, crying,” she told Logan, her bedroom door closed.
“How are you feeling now?” he asked.
“Finished,” she said. “Tired and weak and done. It’s very hard to keep from showing my rage—I so hate him for the betrayal. I am going to do my best to completely avoid him. We will take turns staying at the house with the girls.”
“And what will you do when you’re not there?” he asked.
“I have a friend just a few blocks away who has generously offered her guest room until I reestablish myself. That puts me close to home, and if the girls need me, they have only to call.”
“Sounds excellent. Except for still having to deal with him so much.”
“When you have common children, that’s how it is. But that won’t last forever, I hope. Thank God the girls aren’t six and seven!”
“In the meantime, what are you doing?”
“Polishing my résumé and visiting law practices from San Francisco to Monterrey. I’ve met with a half dozen small firms, even had a couple of offers.”
“So, you’re really going to do this,” he said. “Can’t you make a much better living if you stayed where you are?”
“Actually, no. Not as long as I’m committed to giving Scott half. I have no problem with the settlement, which gives him half of our retirement savings, and it’s very generous. But...it’s complicated...”
“I have time,” Logan said.
She sat on her bed, sipped a late-night chardonnay, enjoying the conversation. They had started talking two or three times a week, and she found herself looking forward to each call.
“I’ve been kind of jealous of Scott, if you want to know. Of his fun lifestyle.”
“So—you were jealous of his time off?”
“Not just that,” she said. “I felt a lot of pressure to earn money and to earn as much as possible so we’d have a solid retirement, so we wouldn’t have to worry like my parents did. I was burned out on the rat race of corporate law for a big company years ago, but I would never have said so. I stayed on that treadmill because the pay and benefits were good, but I was dying to slow down a little. Well, the kids’ college accounts are good enough. There’s nothing preventing them from getting good educations in good schools. What’s left of my retirement fund is good enough for me. I’d like some flexibility. I’d like to take a morning or afternoon off sometimes. I’d like to take the girls on a trip, just the three of us. Most of all, I’d like to build a practice that’s mine. Admittedly, when you do that, it takes a while. But that’s okay. My half of the savings will help me get from month to month if I don’t earn much.” She cleared her throat. “I put in my notice. I’ll be wrapping up my corporate duties in a month.”
“Whoa! It’s really happening?”
“It’s now or never,” she said.
“I’ve always heard you shouldn’t make a major change for a year after a death or divorce,” he said.
“I’ve heard that, too. But otherwise I have to keep working at that frantic pace and for what? For Scott? To make sure he’s comfortable in his divorce? To make sure he has plenty of money to spend on her? I haven’t been having fun for a long time now. And you know what? Scott has obviously been having fun!”
Logan laughed. “Is this you saying he’s done having fun on your dime?”
“That’s not how I mean it,” she said. “It’s really much simpler. He doesn’t want me. After all my dedication, he’s leaving me for another woman. And so he’s getting what the law says he’s entitled to—half the savings, half the retirement funds, half the house equity. But I’m claiming my future.”
Logan laughed. “I smell revenge,” he said.
“If I wanted revenge, there’s probably a better way. I want to change my life. I want to feel valuable again. I want to feel some sense of self-worth. Probably the worst thing this divorce has done to me is bring on feelings of irrelevance. I worked so hard for us, so we could afford the things Scott wanted to do. It made me happy to know he was enjoying his life. I never wasted a second on resentment. Then he threw me out with the trash. Because he just wasn’t happy enough. And on top of it, he complained that I was too focused on my work. I suggested that if he resented my long hours, perhaps he shouldn’t take so much of the money I earned, and he said that was precisely why he should take the money. He said the money was the only thing I’d really given him.”
Logan whistled.
“I have a lot of feelings I can’t escape. I’m angry. I’ve never been so angry. I’m afraid of a million things—afraid I’ll be alone for the rest of my life, afraid I won’t make it on my own, afraid I’ll always feel bitter, afraid my stomach will hurt every day, that I’ll wake up and my first thought will be of Scott and that woman day after day, and yet... And yet the very worst thing of all, I have zero respect for a man I loved and admired for thirty years.”