"Your responsibility. Your problem. I never wanted any part of this arrangement. I told everyone it was a bad idea."
"And now I'm supposed to clean up the mess? I don't think so." And then I hung up on him because rich or not, boss or not, he didn't get to lecture me about responsibility while sitting in his fancy office completely removed from the reality of what he'd set in motion. That night, after the kids were in bed, I sat in my kitchen and marveled at the sheer audacity of these people.
They'd all rallied around Melissa like she was some kind of victim instead of a woman who'd made a series of spectacularly bad choices that had predictable consequences. Not one of them had called to ask how I was doing. Not one had acknowledged that maybe, just maybe, I had a right to be angry about my wife carrying another man's baby. Not one had suggested that perhaps Melissa should have considered her husband's feelings before agreeing to this insane arrangement.
But they all had plenty to say about my supposed failures as a husband and human being. The begging parade was in full swing, and I was apparently the only one who could see how ridiculous the whole thing was. If you've never been through a divorce, let me paint you a picture. Imagine the worst job interview of your life crossed with a root canal, sprinkled with the emotional devastation of watching your entire adult life get dissected by strangers in cheap suits.
Now multiply that by about a thousand, and you're getting close to what it's like to sit in a courtroom while lawyers argue over who gets to keep the good dinnerware and whether you're a terrible human being. The whole thing started six months after I'd filed the papers because apparently the legal system moves at roughly the same speed as continental drift. By the time we actually made it to court, Melissa had settled into her new life as a single mother living in her sister's spare bedroom. Charles and Vivien had presumably bonded with their custom-made baby and had gotten comfortable with the idea that my marriage was deader than disco.
But Melissa being Melissa couldn't just sign the papers and move on with her life. No, she had to turn our divorce into some kind of three-ring circus where she was the tragic heroine and I was the mustache-twirling villain who'd abandoned his pregnant wife in her hour of need. Her lawyer was this guy named Richard Steinberg, one of those slick operators who probably learned his trade watching reruns of L.A. Law and figured out that righteous indignation pays better than actual legal knowledge. He had perfectly styled hair, a tan that definitely came from a bottle, and the kind of practiced sincerity that made you want to check your wallet after shaking his hand.
My lawyer, on the other hand, was James Holloway, the same guy I played baseball with in high school, who'd gone on to law school while I was studying accounting and probably wondering why anyone would voluntarily choose a career that involved this much paperwork. Jim was the kind of lawyer who wore off-the-rack suits and actually cared about winning cases instead of just looking good while losing them. The courtroom itself looked exactly like every courtroom you've ever seen on TV, with paneling that had probably been installed during the Coolidge administration. Fluorescent lighting that made everyone look like they were suffering from a vitamin deficiency and the particular smell that all government buildings seemed to have, like disinfectant mixed with broken dreams.
Melissa sat at the plaintiff's table looking like she'd stepped out of a tragic-single-mother photo shoot. She was wearing this simple black dress that probably cost more than my monthly car payment. Her hair was pulled back in a style that said, "I'm too devastated to care about my appearance," but somehow still looked perfect. And she had this expression on her face like she was bravely enduring an unthinkable injustice.
Behind her in the gallery sat her entire support squad. Clara looking appropriately outraged. Joanne dabbing at her eyes with a tissue like she was watching a particularly sad episode of This Is Us. And, I kid you not, Charles and Vivien Whitmore sitting in the back row like they were attending a community-theater production of Poor Melissa Gets Screwed Over by Her Mean Husband.