The divorce took nearly a year.

I kept the house, since it had been mine before the marriage, though I had to work with the lender and the court to clear the fraudulent debt.

Travis gave up his interest in several marital assets and was ordered to repay a large share of what he’d taken.

His motorcycle was sold. So were the gaming equipment, the collectibles, and the electronics he’d bought while Ruby’s refrigerator sat empty. The recovered money didn’t fix everything, but it helped.

Throughout it all, Travis kept sending apologies, and every one followed the same pattern — first he blamed Patricia, then unemployment, then stress, then me, and finally he insisted he had changed. I stopped reading after the opening lines.

Ruby struggled in ways I hadn’t anticipated.