Sunday, the tenth night, I spent the morning at Dad's. He wanted help replacing a warped board on his porch steps. We worked slowly because he insisted on holding the measurements and checking my cuts, even though his hand shook slightly when he wrote the numbers down. Around noon he asked whether Natalie had called again. I told him she had, but that I hadn't answered her messages.
“Are you sure that's what you want?” he asked.
“No. I'm not sure about much of anything.”
“That sounds about right.”
I looked at him. “It doesn't bother you that I might be ending the marriage you and Mom watched me start?”
“Your mother would have told you to be careful with your heart,” he said. “Then she'd have asked whether you wanted a sandwich.”
I laughed. Dad rested a hand on the porch rail and looked out toward the street. “I won't pretend I don't care about Natalie. She helped me when I couldn't tie my own shoes. I remember every bit of it. But loving someone doesn't mean you owe them an unlimited number of chances to disregard you.”
After we finished, he gave me an old brass level that had belonged to my grandfather. It was scratched along one edge and heavy for its size. “I thought you might want this,” he said. “Your granddad used to say you couldn't build anything straight if you started by lying about where the line was.”
I took the level and turned it in my hands. It was the kind of thing Dad said when he didn't know how to give a speech. I thanked him, and we stood together on the porch until a cool wind started moving the leaves along the sidewalk.
At four that afternoon, Leah called. Her office had completed the initial petition and supporting financial documents. We reviewed them by phone. They identified the marriage, the property, the business interest, and the relief I was asking the court to consider. Leah made sure I understood that no final outcome was guaranteed and that everything Natalie and I owned would need to be addressed through the proper process. Then she asked whether I still wanted to file the following morning.
I watched a pair of squirrels chasing each other across the fence. “Yes,” I said.
“Are you certain you're making the decision for yourself and not because you want her to be frightened?”
The question irritated me until I realized why she had asked it. I thought about what I wanted to happen when Natalie came home. A part of me still wished she'd run through the door and say she'd been wrong. A more wounded part wanted to see the shock on her face when she learned I hadn't waited obediently. But underneath both was something quieter. I no longer believed a marriage could survive on the understanding that one person was permitted to make life-changing decisions while the other was expected to absorb the consequences.
“I'm certain,” I told Leah. “I won't use the filing as a bargaining chip. I want to proceed.”
“Then we'll proceed.”
At nine twenty-three that night, Natalie left a voicemail. Her voice sounded bright, almost relieved. “Daniel, I've had enough time to think. I'm coming home tomorrow. We need to talk. I know this hasn't been easy for you, but I think the space was good for me. I'll probably get in during the afternoon. Maybe we can order from that Thai place and have a real conversation. I hope you've had some time to calm down.” She paused before the final sentence, then added, “I love you. See you tomorrow.”