The Standing She Did Not Know She Had

I did not follow any of it more closely than my own attorney required.

I had a newborn.

I had a life to rebuild.

The empire could unravel on its own schedule, and it did.

The custody waiver is the part I think about, of everything that was signed and unwound in those months.

Because it is the one document that was purely a mercy, and a mercy Beau granted for entirely selfish reasons, and I took it anyway, gladly, with both hands.

He signed away all claim to Isla not out of any late-arriving decency but because he was drowning and a clean break was cheaper than a fight — and I have made my peace with the ugliness of his motive, because the result was the thing I wanted more than anything the equity could buy.