Chapter 12
Lorna taps her pen against her legal pad like she’s composing a symphony, not orchestrating the complete legal evisceration of my soon-to-be ex-husband. Her handwriting is absurdly neat, curved and elegant, like if calligraphy and threat-level precision had a baby.
“Alright,” she says, cool and clinical, “let’s start with assets.”
She nods, jotting it all down. “Anything joint?”
“Just the house.”
“The house,” she echoes, and pauses like it deserves a cinematic beat. “It’s in both your names, correct?”
“Yeah. It was gifted to us by his parents and the deed is in both our names. But,” I raise a finger because I know this part matters, “his father is Judge Miller. Capital J, capital M, ruling over half of Cook County’s civil court like God with a gavel. ”
“Oh, I know,” she says, her tone gone deliciously sharp. “And trust me, if the judge on your case hears how the woman Judge Miller introduced as his daughter has been treated, there’s a very good chance Mike loses any claim on that property. Even in Illinois.”
I blink. “Wait, what do you mean?”
Her mouth curves into a practiced, lawyerly smile, the kind that makes grown men cry and juries’ hand over everything but their firstborn.
“You’re about to learn your new favourite phrase: equitable distribution.
Illinois doesn’t do automatic fifty-fifty splits.
It’s about what’s fair, not what’s equal.
And if we can make it look like you’re the injured party, sweetheart, that house could be yours. ”
I let out a slow breath, something between relief and holy hell I’m scared. “Okay, and what’s my job?”
Lorna sets her pen down with a soft click. “To be elegant.”
“…Elegant?” I blink. “Have you met me?”
“You’re going to be poised. Gracious. Sad. The heartbroken legal wife blindsided by betrayal. Not petty. Not vindictive. No arson jokes.”
“That’s very hard for me.”
“Illinois only recognizes irreconcilable differences. Not adultery, not misconduct. So, no matter how much your sister’s naked ass in your bed haunts you— ”
I groan. “Why would you say that out loud?”
“-we need to build a narrative. You as the victim. Him as the philanderer. The judge won’t punish him for cheating, but they will favour you for being sympathetic.”
I slump back in my seat. “Sympathetic. Great. I’ll wear beige and cry.”
Lorna’s already writing again. “Now. Employment. Are you currently working?”
“I quit Marx Media last month.”
Her eyes light up. “Perfect.”
I frown. “Let me finish. I just got hired by Marx Corp as legal counsel to the CEO. With a salary bump.”
Lorna pauses, eyes narrowing. “When do you start?”
“Monday.”
“Can you delay that?”
I tilt my head. “Delay starting a dream job so I can win a divorce war. Of course. What else?”
“Keep him on your side,” I open my mouth but she continues, “If he doesn’t contest, you’re looking at a one-to-three-month process. If he does, it could drag on for two years.”
I stare at her. “Jesus. ”
“So yes,” she says, smooth as butter, “keep him on your side.”
“Lorna. You want me to keep the cheating man I’m divorcing on my side. That is-”
“Absurd. I know. But hear me out.” She leans in, voice low and sly. “You don’t have to love him. You don’t even have to like him. Just lay on the waterworks. Make him feel guilty. Like he has a chance at redemption. That he might win you back if he plays nice.”
“…So, you want me to manipulate him.”
“Yes.”
I blink. “I have no problem with that.”
“Good.” She smiles. “Because there’s more. You can’t block him.”
“I…excuse me?”
“No blocking. No ghosting. You need open channels. Let him text you. Let him beg. Let him confess. You’re giving him rope, Leni. He’ll hang himself with it.”
I stare at her, mouth slightly open. “You are terrifying.”
“I’m your friend.”
“Same thing, in this case.”
She flips to a fresh page. “Now. Your sister. You said she’s nineteen? ”
“Unfortunately.”
“Any chance this started before she was legal? Even just flirting, texts, DMs?”
I hesitate, stomach turning. “I don’t know.”
“Find out.”
I swallow hard. “I’ll try.”
Lorna keeps writing. “Good. Because if we can prove grooming or even inappropriate contact before she turned eighteen, he’s not just losing the house. He’s getting scorched earth.”
I sit back, winded, and suddenly the wine hangover from last night creeps in like smoke under a door.
After answering a million more questions about prenups, we don’t have one; his salary, it was less than mine; and other questions I walk out of Lorna’s office into the crisp noon air with a half-formed plan and the distinct sensation that I might throw up in a decorative planter.
Elegant. She wants me to be elegant.
Meanwhile, I’m one coffee and a stable nervous system away from setting Mike’s favourite vintage records on fire and mailing him the ashes in a Tiffany box.
But no. No arson. Not yet .
I have to play the long game. The strategic game. The equitable game.
Which means step one: find out if my husband is not just a cheating bastard, but a legally actionable one.
God.
Keira.
Even thinking her name makes my stomach twist. My sister. Nineteen. A baby. Stupid, reckless, too impressionable for her own good. But also, old enough to know better. And he is thirty-one and charming in that clean-cut, Midwestern boy who went to private school way.
I walk until my legs ache, past office towers and coffee shops and happy couples who don’t know their lives can implode on a Tuesday.
I end up at a corner café I used to study in during law school.
I order a large iced matcha and stare at my phone for a solid ten minutes at the hundred texts she has sent me since last night.
They’re all the same version of I’m sorry and I didn’t mean to and I don’t know how it happened.
Yeah?
You don’t know how your brother-in-law ended up inside you?
Cool. Very chill. Happens to the best of us .
No.
No, no. Be elegant. Be elegant.
I take a breath, but it gets stuck somewhere between my ribs and the realization that I might vomit.
Our relationship has always been weird. Not exactly bad, but fractured in a way I’ve never really had the language for. My parents brought her home when I was ten. A squirmy, gurgling baby girl wrapped in a pink blanket and expectations.
At first, I was excited. Like I’d won some big sister lottery. But that high wore off fast.
Because suddenly, everything was a competition I never signed up for.
She said mama before I did. Crawled before I could roll over. Potty trained at three while I was apparently still waddling around in diapers at four, which my mother reminded me of with a laugh like it was cute. Like it was funny.
And then came the bigger things.
I got McDonald’s and a cake from Walmart for my birthdays. She got catered backyard parties with bouncy castles and live magicians.
They acted like the ten-year age gap didn’t exist. Like I wasn’t in high school when she was still learning to spell her own name.
At my sixteenth birthday, they gifted us matching colouring sets.
I kid you not. Me, who can’t draw a straight line with a ruler.
And to top it off, they surprised me with a family trip to Water World.
Sounds sweet, right?
Except they scheduled it on the day of a mandatory exam. And when I asked if we could reschedule, they just said, “Keira’s excited, and it’s for kids anyway.”
Right. Kids.
I was sixteen. And that trip wasn’t for me. It was never about me.
So, when I left for college, I didn’t cut out my parents.
I cut her out. I didn’t even mean to at first. But every time she texted, every call she made, every “Can I come visit?” just dragged the whole mess back up.
All the ways I’d been pushed aside. All the ways she’d never had to fight for their attention because it was handed to her on a glitter-covered plate.
The last time I answered her call, she was complaining.
Complaining that Mom was always sending her care packages, and Dad wouldn’t stop asking about her grades.
At the college he paid for in full. She’s never worked a job.
Never learned to drive. I was working part-time and riding the bus at sixteen just to be away from her.
Our parents? They were busy. Too busy for me. Not too busy for her .
So yeah. I let Mike handle her. Whenever she showed up at the house, God, it makes me sick to even think that now, I’d just pass her off. “Oh, Mike will take care of her.” “Babe, can you keep her company?” Like she was a damn plant I didn’t want to water.
Did I do this?
Oh my God.
Did I help him groom my little sister?
My stomach flips. I double over on the seat like I’ve been punched. Because suddenly I’m not just angry at him. I’m angry at me. For not seeing it. For being so desperate to distance myself from her that I handed her to a man who apparently took one look and saw something he could exploit.
This isn’t just betrayal.
This is biblical.
Cain and Abel, but make it a twisted domestic thriller where I might be the one who handed over the murder weapon and walked away.
I should hate her. I do hate her. But I also hate that I feel sorry for her. That somewhere deep in my gut, under all the fire and fury, there’s still this instinct to protect her. To believe she didn’t know what she was doing. That she was a kid, my kid sister, and he took advantage .
But if I let myself believe that, then I have to ask the real question.
Where does that leave me ?