I stand in the middle of my not-quite-decorated living room, holding another woman’s earring and listening to the silence of a house that suddenly feels too big.
The tears come then, hot and blurring everything, and I let them. My knees buckle and I sink to the floor, pressing my forehead against the couch where I found the stupid little thing. My shoulders shake, my chest heaves, and I cry for the marriage I thought I had, the future I imagined, the kids we were hoping to have someday but kept pushing off.
It hurts. God, it hurts.
But beneath the pain something else flickers.
Quiet. Fragile.
A single, small thought: I’m still here.
And I’m not the one who should be ashamed.
One
Holley
Six months later, I sit in a freezing conference room with my hands folded tightly in my lap and try not to throw up. How did this become my life? How did my dreams shatter so effortlessly and quickly?
The pain of heartbreak doesn’t seem to want to leave me. I have felt every emotion under the sun from the betrayal shock to anger, to even feeling the freedom of being without him. It’s all a mixed up bunch of chaos that stays in a constant swirl in my head and my heart.
The fluorescent lights buzz overhead. The air smells like burnt coffee. A cheap fake plant droops in the corner, its plastic leaves dusty. The long table in front of me is scratched where previous pens have dug into it, the faint ghosts of other people’s fights etched into the veneer. In this room people lay it all out on this very table, literally. And here I am another statistic.
I’m in a blazer I got at a thrift store, a size too big, the sleeves rolled up at the wrists. My black pants are pressed because I ironed them last night on the kitchen counter. There’s a stain on my shoe I couldn’t get out. My hair is pulled back in a too tight bun, my lipstick is the neutral shade a beauty blogger swears makes everyone look composed.
Inside, I feel anything but composed. No I’m falling apart even if this is supposed to be the first step to putting my life back together.
On the other side of the table, my soon-to-be-ex-husband lounges back in his chair like this is an inconvenience he’s indulging me in. He’s wearing a crisp new shirt and a watch I’ve never seen before. He got a haircut.
He looks good.
Healthy.
Tanned.
Toned.
Relieved even. He’s thriving while I’m still a hot mess.
The sight of him makes something twist hard in my stomach. The anger is climbing.
The mediator, a woman in her fifties with kind eyes and a stack of folders, smiles in that tight, neutral way professionals do when they’ve seen every version of this. “So,” she begins, tapping her pen against the pad in front of her. “We’re here today to work through the division of assets and debts and see if we can get you both to an agreement without going to court. That will save you both time and money.”
I nod, because I understand that language: save money. I understand that too well. I’m drowning in debt.
Debts he created. But that is the thing about marriage and love, I gave him blind trust. A trust that has left me with a mountain of credit cards that are maxed out. Cards I didn’t even know I had.
He just shrugs.
My lawyer, a calm woman named Denise who talks fast and thinks faster, nudges a packet toward the mediator. “We’ve already submitted Holley’s financial disclosures,” she remarks. “We’re here to review his. As all of my requests for disclosures from Mr. Colson have been ignored we kindly request the court intervene and provide us the information here today.”
The mediator looks at him. He slides a folder to the woman. She opens the folder gazing at the single paper in front of her. “All right, sir, I see here you’ve listed your income as… zero.”
The word lands like a punch to my solar plexus. I knew this was coming. Some things never change and in the last two years when has he managed to hold down a job? He hasn’t. Why would he work now?
Denise anticipated this very move.. “He going to claim no income,” she’d said over the phone two weeks ago, irritation sharp under her clipped tone. “Self-employed, no verifiable salary, no tax returns filed in the last two years. It complicates things. The debts you submitted are all attached to your social security number. We may be forced to file fraud charges or you may consider bankruptcy. These are conversations to have after mediation.”
But hearing it said aloud, in this room, in front of me, is something else. I can’t help it, I do exactly what I told myself I wouldn’t do: I look at him.
