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.