Part Twelve: The Hearing

The final appearance was on a Thursday in September, at nine-thirty, in a courtroom in the county building that smelled like floor wax and radiator dust.

It took eleven minutes.

That is the thing about the end of a marriage that nobody puts in films.

Everything that matters happens in a motel walkway and a living room and a lawyer’s office above a florist.

By the time you get to a courtroom, it is entirely administrative.