I had imagined. Someone had been coming to our street, possibly our house, while I was working late and believing I was helping our marriage. I walked inside and placed Diane's name at the bottom of my notes, adding a reminder to ask Sandra how best to handle information from a neighbor.
That night I could barely sit in the living room. The couch was the one we'd chosen together because Kate insisted it was the perfect shade, though I had wanted something that didn't show every spill. She was watching a show and laughing at the screen, the ordinary sound of it making my skin feel too tight. I told her I was tired and went to bed early. She called out that we should do something fun over the weekend to get our minds off the unpleasantness.
Unpleasantness. I lay awake thinking about the word. It suggested bad weather or an awkward argument with a stranger, not a decision that had broken the central promise of our marriage. For the first time I wondered how many other things we'd described in different language over the years.
She'd called my disappointment about the declined job opportunity an understandable sacrifice, and I'd called it love. She'd called the card balance an unfortunate mistake, and I'd called helping her pay it down support. Now she was calling betrayal unpleasantness and waiting for me to adopt her vocabulary again.
Sandra's office occupied the third floor of a brick building near the courthouse. The waiting room was plain, with beige chairs, a stack of local magazines, and a small table bearing a bowl of peppermints. No soothing fountain or dramatic artwork suggested that life-changing decisions were made there. I liked it for that reason. Whatever happened, it would happen with paperwork and careful questions rather than theatrical declarations.
Sandra was in her early fifties, with short dark hair and reading glasses she wore on a thin cord. She shook my hand, asked whether I'd found parking easily, and invited me to sit. I laid the documents on her desk in labeled stacks, and one corner of her mouth moved slightly when she noticed the categories. "You work in logistics, your brother said," she observed. "That explains the tabs."
She reviewed the purchase agreement, the mortgage, and my income records. She didn't treat the affair as a magic key that would automatically determine our property division. Instead she explained that dividing marital assets involved rules, contributions, the character of the property, and whatever settlement we could reach or a court would ultimately approve. A note in a bank transfer was useful evidence of why I'd moved the money, not a guarantee that I'd receive every dollar back. That distinction mattered to me because I wanted advice, not reassurance dressed up as certainty.