I pulled my hands back into my lap.

“I want a complete divorce.”

He closed his eyes as a tear ran down his cheek, but I remained seated without offering comfort.

When the meeting ended, I walked outside with Sandra into the afternoon sunlight.

The months that followed were not a montage of easy victories.

They were filled with documents, waiting, and ordinary mistakes.

One morning, I discovered I had missed an insurance renewal because an address change had been sent to an email Spencer used to manage.

Another afternoon, a client asked why I had not responded to a message supposedly sent from my company account.