Chapter 10
Friday. Day off. I wake at noon because my body is still confused about what daylight means.
I make coffee. Sit at the table with my laptop. Open the DIVORCE folder. Everything's organized — Heather's notes, bank records, Marco's legal pad photos, timeline, Brooke's Venmo screenshots.
"I want to file," I say.
A pause. Then: "Okay. Have you told him?"
"Not yet. You said to wait."
"I said to wait until I was ready to file. I'm ready. We can serve him Monday if you'd like."
Monday. Three days. He'll go from "I'm earning it back" to "I'm being served" in three days.
"Monday works," I say.
"Now — the dissipation claim. I want to present it with the filing. I have the bank records, his handwritten list, and the credit line documentation. Is there anything else?"
"Brooke came to my workplace Wednesday night. Uninvited. She admitted in front of my charge nurse that she intends to sign the payment agreement."
"She showed up at your job?"
"Yes."
"That's useful. It shows she acknowledges the debt. Did anyone witness the conversation?"
"My charge nurse, Deborah. And the waiting room probably heard everything."
"Good. I'll note it." Keys clicking on her end. "One more thing. The co-signed lease. I've drafted a demand letter to the landlord — Marco needs to be released from the guarantee. We'll include it in the divorce filing as a marital debt."
"What if the landlord won't release him?"
"Then it's his debt to carry. The court will assign it to his column, not yours."
I hang up. I feel like I've ordered something irreversible — like calling a code. Once you hit that button, things move fast and you can't un-move them.
Monday. He'll know Monday.
I close the laptop. Stare at the wall. Count the cracks in the plaster near the ceiling — three.
This apartment is old. We've been here four years, saving for the house that was supposed to be next.
The kitchen is narrow. The counters are laminate.
The bathroom has a vent that rattles when the heat kicks on.
I never complained because it was temporary.
Every month the savings number grew and the house got closer.
I measured time in bank statements — $2,000 per month saved, sixteen months to the goal.
Every time I checked the balance and it was higher than last month, I felt like we were building something.
Like my night shifts meant something beyond survival.
He broke the measuring tool. The thing I used to tell myself we were okay — he emptied it. And now I'm in the same narrow kitchen with the same laminate counters, except now there's no number growing and no house getting closer and no point to the extra $4.50 an hour.
I stand up. I need to move. I can't sit with this.
I go for a walk. I walk. Count my steps. Around the block: 847. Past the laundromat, the deli, the dry cleaner, the vacant lot where they're building condos. Construction workers on scaffolding — like Marco. Like what he does. Building things for other people.
He built me nothing. He gave our building-materials to someone else.
I walk for an hour. 4,200 steps. By the time I get back my head is clearer. Not calmer — clearer. The anger has organized itself into columns. Things I can control. Things I can't.
Can control: filing for divorce. Recovering money through the agreement. Redirecting my income. Starting over.
Can't control: what Marco does next. Whether Brooke actually pays. Whether the credit line interest keeps growing. How long it takes to save $32,000 again.
I shower. Dress. At 3 PM I drive to the house on Archer Street.
Not to look at it online. To see it. In person. The actual house.
It takes eleven minutes. A quiet street — big maples lining both sides, roots buckling the sidewalk slightly. The house is at the end. White clapboard. Black shutters. The fenced yard from the photos is bigger in person — a real yard, not a patch. The kind you'd put a garden in.
I park across the street and I look.
The listing is $289,000. In six months it'll probably be more — the market in this area has been climbing.
If I start saving from zero, at $2,000 a month, it's twelve years before I have the down payment.
Twelve years if nothing goes wrong. If I don't get sick.
If my car doesn't die. If I don't have an emergency.
Twelve years. I'll be forty-four.
I look at the house and I do something I don't do — I feel it. The feeling, not the number. The backyard I would have planted. The kitchen where I would have made real dinners instead of reheated hospital food. The bedroom with the two east-facing windows where my plants would have thrived.
He took that from me. The money, the timeline, the plan. The thing I was counting toward.
I wipe my face. I didn't know I was crying until my fingers are wet. Seven seconds of crying. That's all I allow. Then I start the car.
On the drive home I do the revised math. Divorce settlement: I should receive more than 50% of remaining assets due to the dissipation claim. Brooke's repayment: $12,000 over two years, maybe. Combined: not enough for a house down payment, but enough to not start at actual zero.
My revised plan: rent a studio apartment.
Cheap. $900/month. Keep working nights — the differential matters more now than ever.
Save $1,500/month. In eighteen months I'll have $27,000.
Add Brooke's payments — maybe $9,000 by then if she keeps up.
That's $36,000. Enough for a modest house.
Smaller than Archer Street. But something.
Eighteen months. I'll be thirty-four. That's survivable.
I pull into our apartment lot. Marco's truck is there — he's home from the crew. I go inside.
He's in the shower. I hear the water running. His phone is on the kitchen counter.
I don't look at it. I'm done looking at phones. The evidence is collected. The lawyer has what she needs. Looking at his messages now would only hurt me without helping my case.
But as I walk past it, it lights up. A notification on the lock screen.
Brooke: Don't call me anymore. She has a lawyer. It's over.
I read it without picking the phone up. I read it three times. Then the screen goes dark.
"Don't call me anymore." He's been calling her. Since I confronted him — he's been calling her. Not to send money. Not to help. To talk. To maintain the connection.
He told me it was over.
It's never over when they say it's over. It's over when you make it over.
Monday. Two more days.
I go to the bedroom. Lock the door. Lie down.
I don't count sheep tonight. I count days. Saturday. Sunday. Monday.
Three.