I opened it expecting more from Marcus, but it was Rachel. They're firing me. I hope you're happy. I hope destroying my career makes you feel better about your own failures. I read it twice, felt each word like a slap, then deleted the message without responding.
She wanted a fight, wanted to make me the villain, wanted to turn her consequences into my cruelty. But I was done engaging with her narrative, done defending myself against accusations from someone who'd lost all credibility. I drove home through afternoon traffic, past coffee shops and grocery stores, and all the normal places where normal people live normal lives. My life didn't feel normal anymore. It felt like performance art, the dissolution of a marriage, an installation piece featuring evidence and accusations and consequences.
At home, I found a box on my doorstep. No return address, just my name and Rachel's handwriting. Inside were items I'd left at her parents house over the years, a jacket, some books, a photo album from our honeymoon, things she no longer wanted contaminated with my presence. The photo album hurt. I flipped through it.
Us at Niagara Falls, laughing in the rain, young and in love and so stupidly certain about our future. Rachel in a sundress. Me with my arm around her waist. Both of us looking at the camera like we were showing the world what happiness looked like. That couple didn't exist anymore.
Those people were gone, replaced by strangers who'd spent the afternoon trying to hurt each other through lawyers and HR departments and carefully deployed truths. I closed the album, put it in a drawer I wouldn't open again, and sat down at my kitchen table with the divorce papers that needed signing, the financial documents that needed reviewing, the administrative dismantling of a 12-year relationship. My phone rang. My lawyer Sandra calling with updates. James, hi.
I have news about the divorce proceedings. Go ahead. Rachel's attorney is pushing back on the amended agreement. They're claiming the reimbursement clause for fertility treatments is punitive and not based in legal precedent. It's based on fraud.
She lied about trying to conceive while actively preventing conception. I agree and I think we can argue that successfully, but be prepared. This might go to mediation. Rachel's not going to just accept your terms without a fight. Fine, let her fight it.
I have evidence. I know you do. But evidence cuts both ways, James. She could argue emotional distress. Could claim your behavior after discovering the affair was psychologically harmful.
Could paint you as vindictive. Let her try. Sandra sighed. I'm saying this as your lawyer and your friend. At some point, you need to decide if being right is worth the cost of proving it.
Divorce mediation can get ugly and expensive fast. Are you prepared for that? I thought about the question she'd asked. The cost of being right. The price of truth.