My Husband Replaced Me, My Lawyer Claimed Me.

Something changed

(Lena)

I lay there on the bed for about twenty minutes before I picked up my phone.

There was one person I'd been putting off calling since this whole thing started. Not because I didn't want to talk to her but because saying it out loud to someone who knew me, who knew my life, who had sat across from Brad at my dinner table and laughed at his jokes, was going to make it real in a different way than a lawyer's office or a court filing ever could.

Her name is Diane Okafor and she's been my closest friend for nine years. We met at a design conference in Savannah before I had my own company, before Brad, before any of this. She's the kind of person who tells you the truth even when it's inconvenient and who shows up without being asked when things go wrong. I hadn't called her in four days because I was still trying to get my own footing before I let anyone else into it.

I called her now.

She picked up on the second ring. "I was starting to think you were avoiding me."

"I wasn't avoiding you," I said. "I just needed a few days."

"A few days for what? What's going on?"

I took a breath. "Brad came home a few days ago with a pregnant woman and told me she was moving in."

The line went completely quiet.

"Lena."

"He's been seeing her for a while. She has nowhere to stay so he brought her to the house. And then he told me to quit my business and stay home to take care of her."

Another silence, longer this time.

"He said what?"

"He told me to pull back from work and be there for her. Help her through the pregnancy. In my house."

"In the house you designed and paid for."

"Yes."

I heard Diane put something down on her end of the line. When she spoke again her voice had gone very level in the way it did when she was genuinely furious. Diane's anger was never loud. It went quiet and precise and that was always more unsettling than shouting. "I need a minute."

"Diane."

"No, I just need a minute because I'm trying to decide what kind of angry I am and I want to pick the right one." She let out a breath. "Okay. I've decided."

"What did you decide?"

"I'm very angry. On your behalf. Completely and entirely on your behalf." She paused. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"Lena."

"I'm actually fine. I'm not saying that to sound strong. I'm not sitting here falling apart. I've found a lawyer, a good one, and I'm putting my documents together and I'm going to court and I'm getting what is mine."

"Who did you get?"

"Cole Harmon."

A pause. "Cole Harmon the lawyer."

"Yes."

"Everybody in Atlanta knows that name." Another pause. "Brad must have lost his mind when you told him."

"He went very quiet."

Diane made a sound that wasn't quite a laugh but close to one. "Good. He deserves to be scared." She went quiet for a moment and then said, "I'm sorry this happened to you. I mean that. Six years and he does this."

"I know."

"You gave that man everything. You built that house. You stood next to him through all those years of trying for a baby and he was out there doing this on the side."

"I know," I said again.

"And then had the audacity to bring her through your door and tell you to take care of her. In the house you built." Another pause. "I can't get over that part. Every time I think about it I get angry all over again."

I found myself almost smiling. This was why I'd called her. Not for comfort exactly. For this, someone being angry on my behalf so I didn't have to be, someone carrying some of the weight of it so I could stay clear headed.

"What do you need from me?" she asked.

"Nothing right now. I've got everything under control."

"Are you staying in the house?"

"For now. I'm not leaving until I have to. I'm not going to make this easier for him by disappearing."

"Good." She sounded satisfied by that. "And Cole Harmon's team is on it?"

"His assistant has already sent me the document list. I've been pulling files together since this afternoon. I've got everything they need."

"Of course you do," she said. "You've always kept every record of everything. Brad clearly never paid attention."

"He told me early in our marriage that I was too careful."

Diane made that almost-laugh sound again. "He's going to regret saying that."

We talked for another little while. Not about Brad specifically but about the next steps, about the case, about the house and what I wanted out of it. She asked smart questions, Diane always did, and by the time we said goodnight I felt lighter than I had in days.

I set the phone down and sat there for a moment.

I'd been carrying this alone for four days. Four days of moving through the house, working from coffee shops, filing documents, making calls, handling everything on my own because that was what I did. I hadn't realized how much of that weight had just been sitting on me until I put it down.

My laptop was still open on the bed. I pulled it toward me and saw that a new email had come in while I was on the phone. It was from Cole's assistant. The retainer was confirmed, the documents I'd sent were received, and a formal letter would be going to Brad's address within two days. I read it twice, closed the laptop, and put it on the nightstand.

I turned the light off and lay back.

I was more tired than I realized. The last few days had taken more out of me than I'd let myself acknowledge and somewhere between thinking about the case and thinking about the letter that was going to land at Brad's address soon, I fell asleep.

The dream came quickly.

It wasn't a dream I could have planned or explained. Cole was in it. Not in his office, not behind his desk, just there, and I was there with him, and neither of us had anywhere else to be. The room was dark and warm and I didn't know where we were and it didn't matter.

He said my name. Not Mrs. Calloway. Lena. Low, the way he'd said it at the end of our meeting, except in the dream his voice was closer. Much closer.

He was looking at me the way he had across his desk that first morning, direct and unhurried, but there was no desk between us now. Nothing between us. He was close enough that I could feel the warmth coming off him and when I looked up at him he was already looking at me like he had been for a while.

His hands were on me before I could think about it and I didn't pull away. I didn't want to. He was broad and warm above me and I had my hands against his chest and his mouth was at my neck and I was pulling him closer instead of pushing him away.

I knew what was happening in the dream and I let it happen. All of it. His weight above me, his hands moving like he had all the time in the world, my own voice saying his name in a way I had never said anyone's name before.

I woke up.

I lay there in the dark staring at the ceiling with my whole body warm in a way that had nothing to do with the blanket and everything to do with what had just been happening in my head. The room was quiet. The house was quiet. Downstairs Brad was somewhere doing whatever Brad did and I was lying in this bed with my heart going and my skin warm and Cole Harmon's name still sitting somewhere at the back of my throat.

I pressed my hands against my face.

I had just dreamed about my lawyer. In detail. Detail I had no business going into and had gone into anyway because apparently my brain had decided that the worst week of my life was a good time to develop feelings I had absolutely no room for.

The dream had left something behind that I couldn't shake. Not just the warmth, though that was still there, but an awareness of him that was entirely different from the professional one I'd been carrying since I walked out of his office. I knew what his hands looked like now when they moved. I knew what his voice sounded like saying my name in the dark. Except I didn't, not really, because it was a dream, but my body didn't seem to understand the difference.

I turned onto my side and told myself it meant nothing. That any woman in my position, freshly betrayed, emotionally worn down, sitting across from a man who looked like that and carried himself like that and looked at her the way he did, would have the same reaction.

That was probably true.

It didn't make the feeling go away.

I lay there for a long time before I fell back asleep and when I did I didn't dream again. But in the morning, when I opened my eyes and the first thing that came into my mind wasn't Brad or the house or the court case, I understood that something had shifted in me without my permission.

And I had absolutely no idea what to do about it.