When we were in school, Joseph Kavinsky wore glasses. He didn’t anymore, and I thought it was a shame. The glasses had framed kind eyes, but now he looked a bit imperious without them. Despite his authoritative posture, those eyes were clearly surprised to see me.
“Yes,” I said, responding to my name.
Confusion swept across his face, apparently forgetting that he had called for me.
“I am Mrs. Masterson.”
“Right,” he said, shaking his head, “Your husband let me know that he is running late. Would you like to wait out here until your attorney arrives or would you prefer to wait in the meeting room?”
I pulled out my phone but had no new messages. Apparently telling me he was running late was not important anymore.
“I don’t have an attorney, so I will wait in the meeting room.”
While he had already been standing still, my statement seemed to make him go rigid. As he took a measured breath, the buttons on his tailored shirt shifted in a way that I tried not to be distracted by. Breathing wasn’t sensual, so why was the way his chest moved making my mouth feel dry?
His eyes flicked up and down quickly, then glanced over at the receptionist. Unfreezing, he moved to the side and gestured down the hall behind him.
“This way, please,” he said, his voice was collected but rigid, much like his body language, “third door on the right.”
I didn’t love the idea of him walking behind me. Two decades had not let me forget how fond he had once been of my backside. So, I walked towards the hall but stopped directly in front of him. I smiled as politely as I could and said, “Lead the way.”
Making eye contact while standing directly in front of him was oddly exposing, but it seemed to be more uncomfortable for him than it was for me. Hardly a second had passed before he turned to walk down the hall. Arriving at the door, he stopped, and I silently passed him to enter the room.
The meeting room had a rectangular table with four chairs, paired on opposing sides, that were situated perpendicular to the window that ran the entire length of the far wall. I wondered if the view of the city ever distracted people during meetings, because I was immediately drawn to look out the window.
Passing the table, I casually let my leather bag slide into the extra chair as I made my way to take in the skyline. Joseph’s presence in this exhausting life experience made me feel more fragile than I wanted to admit.
Thankfully, letting myself have a moment to be distracted by the view grounded my emotions. This was the part of the city that butted up against the historic district, a place of distinguished vibrance. Directly after this mediation I had a meeting in that part of town.
While I had been looking out at the city, my focus shifted to the reflection on the window. Joseph was still standing in the doorway, just watching me. How long had I been standing here? Had he been watching me the whole time? I turned my neck, giving a slight profile view to indicate I knew he was still there.
“Would you like any water or coffee while you wait?” he asked, clearly startled by my awareness he was there.
“I’m fine,” I said, turning to look back out the window as if I was ignoring him.
Ignoring him was impossible, though. Instead of looking out, I was still watching his reflection in the glass. He continued to watch me as his fingers silently tapped against the doorknob. I recognized this old habit, his distressed fidget that showed up when he was studying something he didn’t understand. The anxious movement came to a stop, and he closed the door without a word.
In reality, it was serendipitous for Robert to have his divorce attorney be someone who had once meant so much to me. While I knew the divorce was coming, this added a new layer of hurt to it that I hadn’t planned on. Had Robert known about Joseph, he might have even gone out of his way to do this intentionally.
He couldn’t have known because I never spoke of Joseph. The wound he left was one I went out of my way to ignore. This accidental reunion was an unplanned detour to face the cut again, only to find that it had festered.
There had been a moment a few years into my marriage that it seemed like Joseph was trying to reconnect as friends. I never told Robert, but not out of guilt. I put a timeline on the conversation, if we maintained contact for over a month, I’d tell Robert about our re-established friendship.
Joseph and I never once spoke about our summer romance or our old feelings. While I had been desperate for answers when Joseph first disappeared, my life had since gone a different way, and I genuinely committed myself to my marriage back then. All our conversations were safe for my husband to read without censorship.
I just knew that it wouldn’t be necessary because I knew Joseph would disappear. My expectations were met, and after about two weeks he vanished. While I had openly anticipated this conclusion, I couldn’t help but feel upset that he kept doing this to me. However, I kept letting him, and that made me feel responsible for it. I never once tried to hold him accountable for how this behavior hurt me.
While looking out the window, I saw Robert cross the street to the building. Now was not the time to muse about Joseph and his magical vanishing act, I needed to focus on my divorce. After a few minutes, the receptionist escorted Robert into the meeting room.
“Traffic?” I asked, as I began making my way back to the table.
“Work,” was his singular answer for his lateness.
Ah yes, work. It was always work. Robert used work as a shield to hide from the diminishing returns of his domestic life.
Joseph walked in, and Robert immediately went to clasp his forearm, “How are you doing, my man? Good to see you.”
My silent chuckle went unnoticed. I recognized the forearm clasp to be a greeting that Robert had with all his gym mates. I could just imagine them spotting each other during lifts as Robert talked about wanting to get a divorce, and Joseph passing on a business card before the session ended. An accidentally benign alliance that would compound the punishment to my emotions.
Looking at them together, I realized my path with Robert likely began because he looked a lot like Joseph. The same jawline, the same dark hair, the same broad shoulders. However, while they shared physical similarities, they were nothing alike.
Robert had been a smooth-talking, ambitious Sales and Finance double major. This resulted in him scaling the corporate ladder and earning a position as the Vice President of Finance for a massive international corporation. Joseph had been a shy and studious pre-law student, and now he seemed to be a successful attorney. Even if they were friends, Robert wouldn’t trust his money to an attorney without an impeccable track record.
We all wordlessly situated ourselves at the table, but I was caught off guard when Joseph took the seat directly across from me. I had expected Robert to sit there and suddenly felt the added pressure of having to monitor my gaze during the meeting. Afraid that I would unconsciously find his eyes at inopportune moments.
“Where is your attorney?” Robert asked impatiently.
“I don’t have one,” I said flatly. I had my own plan of how I wanted things to go, and any attorney worth their salt would desperately try to talk me out of it.
He shrugged nonchalantly; this was good news for him. Truthfully, he would be receiving a lot of good news during this meeting. I can hold a grudge, and if I wanted to make this the most horrifying divorce experience, I absolutely had the information to do so. I didn’t want to be a wife that clawed at her husband’s money on her way out the door though.
At the end of it all, I just didn’t care that much anymore, specifically about Robert. This past week I mourned the destruction of our family unit, but not for him. I had been avoiding the slow destruction of our marriage for years and, now that it was here, I wanted it to be over as quickly as possible.
Forearms on the table with my fingers laced together, I put on the sweetest demeanor a discarded woman possibly could have.
“Gentlemen, how can I help you today?”
Robert rolled his eyes at my words, his irritation evident in the flare of his nostrils as he spoke.
“Is this the angle you are going to play?”
“Play?” I mused, borrowing the fake smile I saw the receptionist give, “Come now Robert, divorce is no game.”
Joseph cleared his throat as his eyes moved between Robert and me. I’m sure he had heard his fair share of marital disputes, but he seemed to itch at the immediate tension. He shifted through a few papers and began speaking to me without making eye contact.
“The primary areas that we need to address are custody, splitting physical and financial assets, and spousal support. We have prepared terms that I believe to be fair given the length and nature of your marriage.”
The length and nature of my marriage, huh? I was deeply irritated that Joseph had this sort of insight into these personal details of my life. My emotions manifested in the quiet tapping of my heel on the carpet under the table, the movement growing with my feelings until I accidentally brushed Joseph’s leg, and then recoiled at the contact.
I would have apologized but he ignored the incident as he pulled out a thick packet. His eyes barely caught mine as he slid it across the table to me. Putting my thumb on the edge of the small stack of papers, I bent the corner up, listening to the slight snapping sound the pages made as they hit the smooth surface of the table.
“Hefty,” I said, not taking the effort to inject sugar into my voice, “maybe this will be easier if we start with mine.”
I pulled out a single sheet of paper with my requests on it and placed it on the table. I didn't need to take things from Robert.
I needed to start over again.
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