The days before the trip did not unfold like a movie. No dramatic music followed me through the apartment, and there were no meaningful silences at dinner that Celeste suddenly understood. We went to work, bought groceries, fed Biscuit, and moved around the furniture in the cramped patterns of a couple accustomed to avoiding each other's sore spots. I had once mistaken that familiarity for stability. Now I watched it more carefully and saw how much of it depended on my pretending not to notice what had changed.
Thursday evening, Celeste came home with two shopping bags and laid the contents across our bed. A white linen set still had its price tags attached, along with a bright dress, sandals, and a hat she said would photograph well near the beach. I asked whether she had found a way to cover the extra costs without taking more from the house fund. She told me to stop policing her purchases. Then she smiled at her reflection in the closet mirror, pleased with the clothes in a way she hadn't looked pleased to see me in months.
I wasn't proud of the bitterness that followed. A person I loved was excited about a trip, and my first feeling was that she was spending the future we'd planned to build. Part of me wanted to tell her she looked beautiful in the white outfit, because she did. Another part of me remembered the transfer records and couldn't separate beauty from the choices paying for it. I left the room before either part made me say something I would regret.
On Friday, Diane and I had our first formal consultation. Her office occupied the third floor of a building above a pharmacy, with a waiting room full of ordinary people trying to put complicated lives into file folders. I arrived in my work clothes because an emergency call had run long, and I felt out of place among the upholstered chairs and framed landscape prints. Diane didn't care how I was dressed. She asked me to explain my decision in plain words and gave me enough time to discover how hard that was.
"I want to end my marriage," I finally said. I expected to feel some dramatic break after speaking aloud, but there was only sadness and a strange physical tiredness. Diane asked what had led to that decision, and I told her about the ultimatum, the financial withdrawals, and the years of avoiding honest arguments. She said the court would not decide whether our marriage had been emotionally satisfying. It would deal with the legal end of it, while I would have to make peace with the personal part myself.
We discussed service of papers, financial disclosures, temporary arrangements, and the lease. Diane explained that a filed petition wasn't a final divorce, and that how and when Celeste received notice mattered. I said I wanted to give her the documents when she returned from Mexico, while leaving formal service to the process Diane arranged. Diane warned me not to turn delivery into a confrontation or deny Celeste any of the information she was entitled to receive. I told her I understood, even though a small hurt part of me wanted Celeste to experience one moment of surprise as sharp as the one she'd given me.