My ex never asked for anything, especially help, without a reason. And he never took risks unless he thought he had control.
I typed, erased, then typed again.
“That’s not a yes-or-no question.”
The response came fast.
“I understand,” Claire wrote. “I just need to know whether I can say it’s true.”
I was confused by the way she phrased her statement. Why would she need to say it?
I typed, erased, then typed again.
I sat back on my bed and stared at the wall across from me, remembering a conference room years earlier. Elliot was sliding a legal pad toward me and saying, “Let’s keep this amicable. It’ll make things easier.”
Easier for him had always meant quieter for me.
I typed again.
“What did Elliot tell you I agreed to?”
This time, the pause stretched longer. I set my phone down, made tea I didn’t drink, and picked it back up.
“Let’s keep this amicable.”
“He said neither of you wanted children as the marriage progressed,” she’d written when I came back from the kitchen. “That you both grew apart and there wasn’t resentment.”
I closed my eyes.
“No resentment” had been his favorite phrase. He used it like a shield.
I could’ve shut it down and told her everything in one brutal paragraph before walking away.
Instead, I made a choice that changed the rest of the story.
He used it like a shield.
What Elliot didn’t count on was that I’d gotten to know him quite well.
“He asked you to get that from me in writing, didn’t he?” I typed.
The dots appeared, vanished, then appeared again.
“Yes,” she wrote. “For court.”
Court.
