Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

My first rule for meeting a new client: It's always on their turf.

Sometimes that means at a skateboard park, or in side-by-side chairs at a nail salon, or in their backyard while they throw a tennis ball for their golden retriever. Food is typically involved. My clients rarely want to confide in me early in the process, and eating pizza or nachos provides space for silence.

I never press hard during the first meeting. It's all about establishing trust.

By the time I see them, any trust my clients once held in adults has been shattered.

When divorce court judges are presented with the most brutal, complicated custody cases—ones in which no resolution seems possible—they appoint someone like me: a best interest attorney, or guardian ad litem. We represent the children.

My particular area of expertise is teenagers. I never take on clients younger than twelve. But Charles—or Judge Huxley, as he's more widely known—wants me to break that rule. One of his colleagues is the presiding judge on the Barclay case, and she is having trouble finding the right attorney for Rose.

I take a last glance up at the gray building Rose disappeared into only moments ago. She's in a safe space, being tended to by a highly trained professional. Her mother is present.

So who does the girl think she needs to protect herself from with a shard of glass that could double as a knife?

My Uber pulls up to the curb. "Stella?" the driver asks as I slide into the backseat, and I nod.

He turns up the radio, and an NPR reporter's modulated voice pours out of the speakers. I'm relieved the driver doesn't want to make conversation. I need to gather myself before reaching my next destination, another office building close to the National Cathedral. This appointment is a personal one.

I stare out the window as the driver winds his way north through clogged streets, muttering under his breath when he gets stuck behind an illegally parked Tesla.

My mind feels overly full, a dozen discordant thoughts buzzing through it. I reach for my phone to send a text to Marco, my soon-to-be ex-husband, then discard the idea. He knows I'm coming, and he won't be late. Like all the partners in his prestigious law firm, he parcels out his days in six-minute billing increments, which makes him acutely aware of time.

I step out of the Uber at the stroke of five o'clock, heading for a nondescript brick building that holds more than its share of heartbreak.

I bypass the elevator and climb the stairs to the fourth floor, then walk into the small reception area of suite 402. Marco is waiting, leaning back in a chair as he smiles at something on his phone.

The sight of him still takes my breath away. His Italian roots show in his glossy dark hair, tan skin, and eyes that turn to amber when the sun hits them. Our coloring is so similar we've been asked more than once if we're related.

"Just one of those old married couples who start to look alike," Marco used to joke.

He rises now, placing a hand on my shoulder as he leans in to brush a kiss across my cheek. I start to wrap my arms around him, but he pulls back before I can embrace him in a real hug.

We both speak at the same time, our words entwining instead of our bodies.

I aim for a joke: "Fancy meeting you here."

Marco pulls out a DC clich é : "How was traffic?"

He gestures to the coffee table where two sets of documents topped by identical blue pens await. "Lakshmi already brought out the paperwork."

I blink hard. This is happening fast. "So all we have to do is sign?"

He nods and hands me one of the slim stacks of paper.

Unlike the divorces I encounter through work, the one Marco and I are going through is as amicable as it gets. Our biggest disagreement came when Marco insisted on giving me the little row house we'd bought together near the DC line. We both know why: He makes twenty times as much as I do now. I accepted the house. But I insisted he take our fancy espresso maker. It was a bigger sacrifice than it sounds; I love a good cup of coffee.

I hesitate, then scrawl my name across the bottom of the final page of our divorce agreement. When I look up, Marco is recapping his pen.

Lakshmi steps into the waiting room. "Hey, Stella. You guys all set?"

I nod, my eyes skittering away from her sympathetic ones. This is the final step in the dissolution of our marriage. After Lakshmi files the papers, I'll get a letter in the mail notifying me our uncontested divorce has been granted.

My gaze roams across the box of tissues on the coffee table. Next to it is a sculpture of an eagle in flight, its wings outstretched. I recognize the symbolism: tissues for grief at an ending, the bird an image of hope for the future.

Marco and I wed on a crystalline winter day nearly ten years ago, just as the first snow of the season began to fall. Even before I said the vows I meant with my whole heart, I knew we'd end up here.

It was only a question of when.