I didn’t flinch. I didn’t blink. I had practiced this moment in the mirror for three months. I kept my face blank, my breathing steady, pushing the rage down into the pit of my stomach where it burned like a coal.
His lawyer, Helen Rodriguez, nodded solemnly from her seat. She was wearing a navy power suit that screamed billing hours and a strand of pearls that probably cost a semester of tuition. She looked at me with the professional pity of an executioner.
“Dr. Bennett has tried, Your Honor,” Helen interjected smoothly, flipping through a binder. “He offered to hire image consultants. He suggested etiquette classes. He even suggested therapy to help Mrs. Bennett adjust to their new tax bracket. She refused all assistance. She refuses to grow. She prefers to stagnate.”
A lie. A bold, polished, breathtaking lie.
Trevor had never offered me a consultant. He had never offered me etiquette classes. He had offered me silence, late nights, unexplained absences, and eventually, a divorce petition served to me in the hospital cafeteria while I was eating a cold tuna sandwich between trauma cases.
“I see,” Judge Morrison said, leaning back, his chair creaking in the quiet room. “And your proposed settlement?”
Trevor straightened his tie—the silk one I bought him for his residency interviews three years ago. I remembered putting it on my credit card, calculating how much interest I’d pay on it before I could clear the balance.
“A clean break, Your Honor. We rent our apartment, so there is no real estate to divide. The car is in my name. We have a joint checking account with approximately three thousand dollars. I am willing to give Relle half of that. Fifteen hundred dollars. And, of course, my blessing for her to find someone more… suited to her pace of life.”
“And spousal support?” the judge asked, his pen hovering over his notepad.
“Unnecessary,” Trevor said quickly, his confidence surging. “She is a registered nurse. She supported herself before we married; she can do so now. Our marriage produced no children. There is no reason for me to subsidize a life she is perfectly capable of maintaining on her own.”
