I leaned against the kitchen counter. A week earlier I'd imagined I might scream when I saw James again. Now I was being asked to help arrange a legal document delivery to a man who had been undermining two marriages at once. Part of me worried that I would be turning the settlement into a public ambush, humiliating Clare in the same way she'd humiliated me. Another part knew that Rachel was entitled to begin her own legal process, and James's habit of hiding shouldn't prevent it.
I said I would discuss the practical details with Dana and that I wouldn't interfere with the service. Rachel thanked me and assured me her attorney would keep everything within proper channels. She did not ask me to lure James anywhere, and I did not have to. He had insisted on attending the meeting himself. The irony was so stark it almost seemed fictional. His need to control the transfer would put him precisely where somebody else needed him to be.
The following days were a study in the strange ways people behave while waiting for something they cannot stop. I worked, answered calls, signed equipment orders, and attended a neighborhood association meeting because I'd promised months earlier that my company would donate labor to restore a small park. At night I checked with Dana, who continued negotiating figures and documents with Clare's attorney. We agreed on a reasonable division of joint savings and marital equity after reviewing the records. I wanted the numbers to be defensible long after everyone stopped being angry.
Once I saw Clare across a parking lot near a pharmacy. She stood beside the Range Rover while James talked on his phone, gesturing sharply at someone who wasn't there. She looked thinner than she had when she left, and her eyes kept moving toward him as though waiting for instructions. I was close enough to call her name, but she had blocked me and rejected the one warning I'd managed to offer. So I got into my truck and drove away, carrying an ache I could not decide was grief or pity.
That night I called my younger brother, Daniel, to tell him what had happened. We were close, but I had postponed the conversation because saying the words aloud made everything harder to deny. He listened and asked whether I needed him to come stay. I said no, and he didn't argue, but he told me our grandfather would have approved of the way I was handling the property. He also told me something I needed to hear: being fair to Clare did not mean volunteering to absorb the consequences of every choice she made.
"You can't rescue her from a person she chose by becoming the person she blames," he said. "And you can't put your own life on hold until she understands."