He was right. I had spent the night imagining questions I couldn't ask Clare and answers I would never be able to trust, but there were practical decisions waiting regardless of whether I felt ready to make them. Marcus wrote down the next week's crew schedule, took my work phone from the table, and promised to handle the customer calls I couldn't face. He reminded me that the world outside my kitchen still needed to function. That should have felt cruel, but it steadied me.
Before he left, he looked around at the empty hooks by the door. "What about her job?" he asked. "She can support herself, right?"
"She quit last month. Said she was burned out."
Marcus turned back toward me. "She quit before leaving?"
"I told her it was fine. She worked hard for years. I thought she needed a break."
"Whose idea was it?"
I didn't answer. The question stayed with me long after his truck was gone. Clare had been a marketing manager for six years, supervising campaigns and staff across a chain of dental offices. She complained about office politics, about a supervisor who changed targets halfway through projects, and about the exhaustion of always being available. When she said she wanted time to figure out her next chapter, I supported her because marriage had always meant taking turns carrying heavier burdens. Now I was wondering whether someone else had encouraged her to let go of the one income that would have given her choices if his promises fell apart.
By lunchtime I was sitting across from Dana Pierce, a divorce attorney recommended by a supplier who'd survived a bitter separation without turning it into his entire personality. Dana's office wasn't glamorous. There was a well-used coffeemaker in the corner, a small plant trying to recover from too much sunlight, and a framed photograph of her children at a baseball field. She wore a gray suit with comfortable shoes, took notes without dramatizing anything, and stopped me every time I tried to explain why Clare had behaved as she had. "We can come back to motives," she said. "First I need facts."
I gave her the date we'd married, the date I'd bought the house, the rough value of our savings, and the title information for my trucks and equipment. She asked whether the house was in my name, and I explained that I'd bought it three years before Clare and I met. We had paid household expenses together and made improvements during the marriage, which Dana said needed to be accounted for fairly. I was relieved that she did not promise some impossible victory in which Clare would leave with nothing. That wasn't what I wanted, although my feelings were raw enough that I understood why others might have wanted it.
"The inheritance?" she asked.
I described Grandpa's estate, the original bank deposit, the separate account, and the purchase of the cottage. Dana had me bring up the statements on my phone. She traced the deposits with her finger and nodded thoughtfully. Then she explained that inherited property kept separate was generally treated differently from ordinary marital assets in our state, but the details depended on documentation, title, and any money we'd mixed together over time. She would review every relevant document before making a legal claim she couldn't defend.