“Oh.”
“Eric.”
“Yes?”
“Come here and open the door.”
“Can’t.”
“What do you mean, can’t?”
“I’m still at work.”
“You changed those locks.”
“Yesterday I was told the house wasn’t mine.”
“You knew I didn’t mean it.”
“You threw my clothes through a window.”
“I was angry.”
“And I left.”
“And then you came back behind my back.”
“That’s an interesting way to describe entering property I own.”
“You are seriously going to leave me outside?”
“I didn’t leave you anywhere. I’m at work.”
“Where am I supposed to go?”
The irony was almost too obvious.
Twenty-four hours earlier, housing had been my problem.
Now it was hers.
“I don’t know.”
“I’m your wife.”
“Yesterday I was your husband.”
“That’s not funny.”
“Neither were my shirts.”
She made a frustrated sound.
“Come home.”
The word caught my attention.
Home.
Not my house anymore.
Not hers.
Ours again.
Amazing how quickly property language could become flexible.
“Not tonight.”
“Eric.”
“I’m going back to work.”
She hung up.
I sat there for several seconds.
For a brief moment I felt victorious.
Then the feeling passed.
By morning, the situation looked less clever.
I called a divorce attorney named Stephen Cole whom a coworker had used several years earlier.