My Husband Replaced Me, My Lawyer Claimed Me.

Not so simple

(Brad)

I made the first call from my car.

I didn't want to make it from inside the house because Jade was home and I didn't need her hearing any of this. I sat in the driveway with the engine off and pulled up the name of a guy I knew, someone who had used a divorce lawyer a couple of years back and had come out of it reasonably well. I figured he would have a name for me.

He did. A man named Douglas Fitch who had an office in Decatur and had been doing divorce and property law for about fifteen years. Decent reputation, my contact said. Gets the job done.

I called Douglas Fitch's office and got through to him within ten minutes.

I told him the situation. The house, the divorce, the property dispute. I gave him the basics and he listened and asked a few questions and then I told him who Lena had hired.

The line went quiet.

"Cole Harmon," he said.

"Yes."

Another pause. "How did she get Cole Harmon?"

"She found him online apparently."

Douglas made a sound that was not encouraging. "Mr. Calloway, Cole Harmon doesn't typically take cases like this. Divorce and property disputes are not his main area."

"I know that. But he took it."

"If he took it then he has a reason." A pause. "I have to be honest with you. Going up against Harmon Legal Group in a property dispute is not a straightforward thing. Cole Harmon has a record that very few firms in Atlanta can match. He prepares thoroughly, he argues well, and he tends to get what he comes for."

"So you're saying you won't take it."

"I'm saying you need to understand what you're walking into. I can represent you but I want you to have realistic expectations about what that means when the other side is Cole Harmon."

I thanked him and ended the call.

I sat there for a minute and then made a second call. A different name, someone a colleague at work had mentioned once, a lawyer named Brian Osei who apparently handled high conflict divorce cases and had a reputation for being aggressive in court.

Brian Osei's assistant told me he was in a meeting and would call me back.

He called back two hours later.

I went through the same information again. The house, the divorce, the split on the mortgage payments, the property dispute. And then I said Cole Harmon's name.

Brian Osei was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "I know Cole personally. We've been on opposite sides of a case before." He didn't say anything else about that for a moment. "I won't pretend that's not a factor. He's thorough and he doesn't make mistakes and he doesn't settle for less than what his client came for."

"But you'd take the case."

"I'd take the case. But I need you to understand that your position is going to depend entirely on what documentation exists and what the numbers show."

I said nothing to that.

"Mr. Calloway?"

"I heard you," I said. "Set up the meeting."

I ended the call and sat in the car and looked at the front of the house.

The thing about Lena was that she kept everything. I had lived with her for six years and I knew that about her better than almost anything else. Every receipt, every contract, every bank statement, every invoice from every project she had ever run. She kept it all in folders on her laptop and in a filing cabinet in her office and she had been that way since before I met her. I had told her once that she was too careful, that she documented everything like she was waiting for something to go wrong.

She was going to walk into that courtroom with six years of paperwork that told the story exactly the way she wanted it told.

I got out of the car and went inside.

Jade was in the kitchen. She was sitting at the table with a glass of water and her phone and she looked up when I came in. She was further along now and she moved carefully and got tired easily and she had been asking me questions for the past few days that I didn't have clean answers to.

"How did it go?" she asked.

"Fine," I said. I opened the fridge and looked at it without seeing anything in it. "I'm getting a lawyer sorted. It's being handled."

"Which lawyer?"

"I'm still deciding."

She put her phone down. "Brad. Are we going to lose the house?"

"Nobody is losing the house."

"You don't seem sure about that."

"I am sure about it."

"Then why have you been in the car for the past two hours making phone calls?"

I closed the fridge and looked at her. "I'm doing what needs to be done. That's all. You don't need to worry about any of this."

"I'm living here too," she said. "I'm having your baby. I think I have a right to know what's going on."

"What's going on is that Lena hired a lawyer and I'm getting one too and we're going to sort this out in court. That's it. It's a process and it takes time and the best thing you can do right now is let me handle my side of it."

She looked at me for a long moment. "You're scared."

"I'm not scared."

"You've been off since yesterday. Something happened."

"Nothing happened. I made some calls and I have a meeting set up and everything is moving. Stop reading into things that aren't there."

She picked her phone back up but she didn't look convinced. I knew that look. She was letting it go for now but she wasn't done with it.

I went upstairs and sat on the bed and rubbed a hand over my face.

The truth was I didn't know how this was going to go. Every lawyer I had spoken to today had given me the same version of the same answer. Cole Harmon was not someone you went up against lightly. He was not someone you went up against at all if you could avoid it. And I could not avoid it because Lena had already walked into his office and handed him everything he needed.

I had underestimated her. That was the truth of it and I knew it even if I wasn't going to say it out loud to anyone. I had expected grief, I had expected anger, I had expected her to eventually want it over quickly enough to take whatever I offered. I had not expected her to pick up her phone that same day and find the one name in Atlanta that would make everything harder.

I had spent six years watching Lena handle things quietly and efficiently and I had somehow managed to forget that efficient and quiet did not mean small.

I picked up my phone and called Brian Osei back and told him I wanted to confirm the meeting.

His assistant gave me the details.

I put the phone down and sat there in the quiet of the room and thought about how differently I had expected all of this to go.