Chapter 5
Five
The law office is on the fourteenth floor of a glass building where the windows reflect only other windows.
I ride the elevator up, a leaking, postpartum ghost sandwiched between two men in identical suits discussing interest rates.
They talk like they’ve never had an errant bodily fluid in their lives.
A damp circle spreads beneath my blazer with each floor, and I decide the universe doesn’t just have a grudge against me.
It has a detailed, itemized list of grievances and it’s checking them off one by one.
The reception area is all glass and grey: glass desk, grey chairs, grey carpet so thick it feels like walking across a mattress.
A blonde woman in a white shirt sits behind the desk, her fingers moving across her keyboard without making a sound.
She doesn’t look up when I enter, just keeps typing with the concentration of someone pretending to be too busy to notice you’re there.
“Hi,” I say, after twenty seconds of standing in front of her desk has failed to generate any response. “I have an appointment at two. Elsie Quinn.”
She looks up then, but not at me, at a point somewhere above my left shoulder. “Have a seat,” she says, reaching for a clipboard. “You’ll need to fill this out.”
The clipboard contains seventeen pages of questions about my financial situation, marital history, and employment status, none of which I’ve brought documentation for, because Adrian didn’t mention anything about paperwork and I’ve been too busy rehearsing “my husband has been cheating on me with multiple women since I was heavily pregnant” without my voice doing anything embarrassing to think about bringing bank statements.
I’m halfway through the third page, trying to decide whether to list the twins as assets or liabilities, when a door opens and a man appears in the doorway.
He’s in his mid-fifties, with the type of watch that costs more than my monthly mortgage payment and a tie knot so precise it looks like it was executed with architectural tools rather than human hands.
“Mrs. Quinn?” he says, not waiting for confirmation before continuing. “I’m Jeremy Hemsley. Come through.”
His office is more of the same, grey walls, grey carpet, grey furniture, with the single exception of a large abstract painting behind his desk that features what looks like several grey blobs arranged in a pattern so subtle it might as well be an ink-blot test. He gestures to a chair across from his desk, a chair whose armrests are just slightly too wide apart, as if designed for someone twice my size, and sits down with the posture of someone who charges by the minute and wants you to feel it.
“So,” he says, opening a folder on his desk. “Divorce. I understand you’ve been married for... three years?”
“Four,” I say. “Almost five.”
He makes a note. “And children?”
“Twins. Five months old.”
Another note. “And the grounds for divorce?”
This is the moment I’ve been practicing, the one where I explain, clearly and calmly and without falling apart, what Daniel has done. I take a breath, ready to launch into my carefully prepared statement.
“He’s been…“
“Infidelity?” he interrupts, not looking up from his folder. “That’s the most common reason cited in cases like this.”
“Cases like… yes,” I say, the wind taken abruptly out of my sails. “Infidelity. It started when I was pregnant with the twins and… “
“Now, the first thing to understand,” he says, speaking over me with the practiced ease of someone who stopped caring in the late 1990s, “is that Australia is a no-fault jurisdiction.” I must look blank, because he sighs.
“It means the court doesn’t consider the reasons for the breakdown of the marriage.
Not when it comes to matrimonial assets, custody, or maintenance. ”
I stare at him, unsure whether I’m supposed to be relieved or offended by this information. “So, it doesn’t matter that he was cheating while I was in the hospital with our newborns?”
“The court will consider the welfare of the children, of course,” he says, making another note. “But the circumstances of the marriage breakdown won’t be relevant to the division of assets or to disclosure obligations regarding income and superannuation.”
The words roll off his tongue with the ease of long practice, jargon designed specifically to make me feel like I’m failing a test I didn’t know I was taking.
“I have evidence though,” I say, pulling my phone from my bag. “Screen recordings of the messages, photos, dates and times of meetups. I thought… “
“That’s very thorough,” he says, with the mild approval of someone who has just been shown a very long grocery list. “But as I mentioned, the court isn’t particularly interested in the details of the breakdown. The process will be the same regardless.”
He keeps talking, explaining the process with the detached tone of an automated message. Forms, documents, decrees. It all sounds so administrative, so utterly removed from the memory of my husband sending explicit photos to a woman while I sat in the NICU.
“What about custody?” I ask, when he pauses to take a sip of water. “The twins are only five months old. I’m their primary caregiver, I’ve been home with them since they were born, but Daniel and I are both on their birth certificates.”
“The court will make a decision in the best interest of the children,” he says, the phrase clearly part of a script he’s delivered hundreds of times.
“But at this age, it’s extremely unlikely that the court would order overnight stays with the non-resident parent.
Usually, we’d be looking at a graduated plan that begins with day visits and progresses to overnight stays as the children grow older. ”
This is, technically, what I wanted to hear, confirmation that Daniel isn’t going to take Milo and Maisie away from me, but it sits like a stone in my stomach.
The idea of my five-month-old babies spending even a single day in the care of the man who prioritized hookups with strangers over their health makes me want to throw something.
“Won’t the evidence make a difference?” I press, unwilling to let go of the one thing that feels like power. “To custody, I mean. If I can show that he was arranging meetups while they were in the NICU?”
The lawyer considers this for a moment, his head tilted slightly. “Possibly,” he says finally. “The court does consider the character of the parents when making custody decisions. But again, at this age, the focus will be on maintaining stability and the primary caregiving relationship.”
It’s not a no. But it’s not the vindication I was hoping for.
“And financially?” I ask. “I have my own business but took a smaller salary during my maternity leave. Our mortgage is in both our names, but the down payment came from my inheritance.”
“The court will look at the needs and resources of each party,” he says, making another note. “As the primary caregiver, you’d likely be entitled to child maintenance and possibly spousal support, depending on your earning capacity and the length of the marriage. As for the house… “
“It’s not just about money,” I say, the words coming out harsher than I intended. “I need to know if I can keep my children in their home. If I can afford to stay there without Daniel’s income.”
The lawyer looks up then, his expression suggesting I’ve just broken several unspoken rules about appropriate client behaviour.
“That will depend on a number of factors,” he says, his tone noticeably cooler.
“Your earning potential, the equity in the property, whether Daniel is willing to transfer his interest… “
“And if he’s not?” I interrupt.
“Then the court may order a sale and division of the proceeds,” he says, with the careful neutrality of someone delivering bad news to a stranger. “Though given the children’s ages, they may be more inclined to award you occupancy until the youngest reaches a certain age.”
It’s not a guarantee. It’s not even close to one.
Twenty minutes later, I’m back in the elevator with a printed information sheet, a business card, and the feeling of having been efficiently filed away.
The paper in my hand outlines the process in the same detached language the lawyer used, as if divorce is just another administrative task, like renewing a passport or updating a driver’s license.
There’s no mention of the fact that my marriage is ending.
That the man I married, the father of my children, has been lying to me since before they were born.
That I’m going to have to explain to two five-month-olds why their father only comes to visit on Tuesdays and weekends when they get older.
In the car, I sit at a red light and stare at the business card in my hand.
The lawyer’s name is printed in crisp black letters above the firm’s logo, a stylized building that looks nothing like the glass monolith I just escaped, and a phone number I already know I’m never going to call.
After a moment, I drop it into the cupholder and turn the radio up, loud enough to drown out the voice in my head that sounds suspiciously like Daniel explaining why whatever he’s done is actually my fault.
At home that evening, Daniel is already at the table when I walk in, the twins in their highchairs beside him.
Maisie is methodically destroying a piece of banana with focused determination, while Milo watches from his chair with an expression that shows he would very much like to get in on whatever his sister is doing.
“You’re late,” Daniel says, looking up from the food he’s serving onto plates. “I was starting to get worried.”
“Sorry,” I say, hanging my keys on the hook by the door. “Traffic was terrible.”
He nods, accepting this without question. “Did you remember to put the recycling out? The bin men come tomorrow.”
“Yes,” I say, and pass him the salad bowl from the counter. “Green bin and the recycling are out.”