Kate came downstairs while I was putting away a glass. She noticed the bag and asked if I was prepared for tomorrow. I told her I was as prepared as I could be. She stood beside the counter and looked at the mug, then said quietly that she never imagined our marriage ending this way. I said I hadn't either. For the first time in weeks, neither of us followed the statement with an argument about whose fault that was.
She left the kitchen, and I remained there a few minutes longer. I touched the edge of the counter where she'd been standing the night I learned of the affair. The room had not changed, yet every ordinary detail seemed to belong to a different version of my life. I turned off the light and went upstairs to the guest room. Despite everything, I fell asleep before eleven, perhaps because there was finally a day on the calendar when someone would ask both of us to stop describing the past and begin deciding what came next.
The morning of mediation was gray and cold. I woke before my alarm, made coffee, and stood by the kitchen window while the neighborhood came to life. A man walked a dog past our driveway, a delivery van stopped at the house across the street, and Diane brought her recycling bin to the curb with the same determined attention she always gave it. For a moment, watching those routines, I felt like I was about to leave for an ordinary Thursday at work. Then I saw the binder waiting beside my keys.
Kate had already left when I came downstairs. There was a rinsed cup in the sink and a small wet circle on the counter where it had stood. I wondered whether she'd slept any better than I had, whether she felt relief or dread, and whether she was rehearsing arguments in her car. I realized I didn't know. Not knowing the private thoughts of someone I'd once loved felt increasingly normal, and the normality saddened me more than I expected.
Sandra and I met outside the mediation office just before nine. She carried a slim briefcase, while I had the overfilled bag with the financial records I'd spent weeks assembling. She noticed me checking the zipper and told me the most useful thing I could do for the next several hours was listen and answer clearly when asked. She wasn't expecting a dramatic reveal. She was expecting an orderly negotiation in which facts would make some positions easier to defend and others harder.
The office was on the second floor of a commercial building overlooking a narrow street. There were framed landscape photographs in the waiting area and a water dispenser that made a surprisingly loud noise whenever someone used it. I arrived early enough to watch sunlight appear between neighboring buildings. Kate was already there with her attorney when Sandra and I entered the conference room, sitting with her shoulders square and a notepad in front of her.