I want to believe her. I really do. But I’ve seen how persuasive Richard can be, how easily he twists situations to make himself the victim. What if he’s already turned them against me? What if they think I abandoned the family because I got knocked up by a random guy I met at the bookstore? I can’t let him be the storyteller of our relationship, or they’re going to hate me.
“Eomma, can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“When you divorced Appa...” I hesitate treading on old wounds. We’ve never really talked about it. “How did you handle it? The legal stuff, I mean.”
The pause on her end tells me she understands what I’m really asking. My parents’ divorce was brutal. My father had repeated affairs and gambled away their savings, and they had terrible fights about it. They must have split up and gotten back together a dozen times before they finally divorced for good. It’s part of why I fought so hard to make my marriage work. I didn’t want to repeat those patterns. I didn’t want to put my children through what I went through.
Look how well that turned out.
“I made a mistake,” she finally says. “I tried to be nice. I thought if I was reasonable, he would be reasonable too. I thought we could work on things together like adults, for your sake.” She laughs bitterly. “All it did was give him time to spend all our money. By the time I realized what was happening, I had nothing.”
“So what should I do?”
“Stop being nice.” Her voice hardens. “If Richard was capable of being amicable, you wouldn’t be getting divorced. He showed you whohe is, Julia. Believe him. Treat him like the enemy he’s chosen to be.”
“You’re saying I should fight dirty?”
“I’m saying you should hire the best divorce lawyer you can find. Someone who will fight for you the way Richard is fighting against you. A shark. Don’t worry about the cost. Whatever it is, it will be worth it.”
I think about the manila envelope Ian gave me, the one with all of Ben’s research on Richard’s shadier business dealings and affairs. I haven’t done anything with it yet. It felt too much like blackmail, using information gathered without consent.
But my mother is right. Richard isn’t playing by the rules. Why should I?
“I’ll find someone good,” I promise.
“Find someonemean,” she corrects. “Don’t let him win, Ji-Woo. Not because of pride, but because you and the girls deserve better. You always have.”
“I love you, Eomma.”
“I love you, too.”
After we hang up, I stare at the phone for a long time. Then I text Ian.
“Can you ask Ben if he knows any good divorce lawyers? Aggressive ones.”
His response comes almost immediately. “I’ll have names for you tomorrow.”
Of course, he’ll deliver. That’s Ian. Always one step ahead, always trying to take care of me whether I ask him to or not.
The next morning, Ben calls me directly.
“I found you a lawyer,” he says when I answer the phone. “Name’s Mako Brinely. He’s a shark shifter, practices family law with a specialty in high-profile divorces. He’s brutal in the courtroom, and he doesn’t lose.”
“A literal shark?”
“Great white, actually. He has a ninety-three percent success rate, and the seven percent he lost were cases that were unwinnable to begin with. I already sent him the file on Richard. He’s very interested.”
I swallow hard. “How much does he cost?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Ben, I can’t let you pay for my lawyer.”
“You’re not letting me do anything. Ian’s covering the retainer. He said to tell you it’s an investment in his children’s future, and if you argue, he’s going to show up at your workplace and sing ‘Hungry Like the Wolf’ at the top ofhis lungs.”
I can’t help but laugh. “He wouldn’t.”
