My Husband Replaced Me, My Lawyer Claimed Me.

The appointment

(Lena)

I sat on the bed for a long time with my phone in my hand.

Cole Harmon. The name had its own page. A full website with a dark background and clean white letters. Harmon Legal Group. Offices in Midtown Atlanta. Fourteen years of practice. Divorce, asset division, property disputes. The list of what he handled read like everything I was about to walk into.

I scrolled through the page. There was a photo of him near the bottom. He was standing in what looked like a courtroom hallway, not posing, just caught mid step with papers in his hand. He was tall, well dressed, and he had the kind of face that looked like it had never lost an argument in its life.

I didn't know anything about lawyers. I had never needed one before. But something about the way that page was put together made me feel like this man knew exactly what he was doing.

I pressed the call button before I could talk myself out of it.

It rang twice. A woman picked up.

"Harmon Legal Group, how can I help you?"

"I need to speak with someone about a divorce case," I said. "And a property dispute."

"Of course. Mr. Harmon's next available consultation is Thursday of next week. I can put your name down for that."

I looked at the bedroom door. Downstairs I could hear Brad's voice, low and going back and forth. He was still in my house.

"Is there anything sooner?" I asked.

"I'm afraid not. Mr. Harmon is fully booked this week."

"I understand he's busy," I said. "But I need to speak with someone as soon as possible. My situation is not something that can wait a week."

There was a pause on the other end.

"Let me check if we have any cancellations," the woman said. "Can I get your name?"

"Lena Calloway."

Another pause, longer this time. I heard keys on a keyboard.

"Mrs. Calloway, I have a slot Wednesday morning at nine. It was just opened up this afternoon. Would that work for you?"

"Yes," I said. "That works perfectly."

She took my number and told me someone would send a confirmation. I thanked her and ended the call.

Wednesday was two days away. I could hold myself together for two days.

I set the phone down on the bed beside me and sat there in the quiet of my own room. The bedroom was one of my favorite parts of this house. I had taken three weeks to get it right. The colors, the furniture, the way the light came in through the windows in the morning. Every choice in this room was mine. Brad had told me to do whatever I wanted with it and I had. Now I was sitting in it wondering if a judge somewhere down the line was going to hand it over to a man who couldn't even name the paint color on the walls.

I heard footsteps on the stairs.

I already knew it was Brad before the knock came.

"Lena." He knocked twice. "Can we talk?"

I didn't answer.

He opened the door anyway. He stood in the doorway and looked at me sitting on the bed and for a moment he just watched me like he was trying to figure out what I was feeling.

"I know you're upset," he said.

"You should leave, Brad."

"I'm not going anywhere. This is my house too."

"Then Jade needs to go."

He came into the room and sat in the chair near the window. Not close to me. Far enough that he probably thought I would feel like he was giving me space. "I'm not asking you to be okay with this tonight. I know this is a lot. But I need you to think about what I said earlier."

"I did think about it," I said. "The answer is still no."

"Lena."

"You brought a woman into this house and asked me to take care of her. There is no version of that I'm going to agree to."

He rubbed a hand over his face. "She's having my baby."

"I know," I said. "And that is between you and her. It has nothing to do with me."

"You're my wife. It has everything to do with you."

I looked at him then. Really looked at him. Six years and I thought I knew this man completely. I thought I could tell his moods from the way he walked into a room. I thought I knew what kind of person he was at the core of him. Sitting there watching him try to justify what he had done, I realized I had been looking at someone I built in my head, not the person who was actually there.

"Not for much longer," I said.

He went very still. "What does that mean?"

"It means you should find somewhere else to sleep tonight. And Jade needs to be out of this house by tomorrow."

He stood up. "You don't get to tell me to leave."

"I just did."

He stood there for a moment, waiting for me to take it back or soften it or give him something to work with. I didn't move and I didn't say another word. After a while he walked out and pulled the door behind him.

I heard him go back downstairs. I heard the two of them talking in the kitchen, their voices going back and forth, and then the front door opened and closed.

The house went quiet.

I got up and went to the window and looked out at the street. Brad's car was still in the driveway. He hadn't left, he had just taken Jade somewhere else, probably the guest room down the hall or the couch. I thought about going back down there and saying something more but I let it go. One night. I could get through one night.

I went back to bed and lay there with the light off and stared at the ceiling.

I thought about the day we signed the papers on this house. Brad had lifted me off my feet in the parking lot of the realtor's office and I had laughed so hard I couldn't breathe. I had been so happy. I had believed so completely that we were building something real.

I did not cry. I had decided that already and I kept to it.

By morning Brad had made himself breakfast in the kitchen like nothing had changed. Jade was sitting at my kitchen table in a robe that was not hers, drinking orange juice and looking at her phone. Neither of them said good morning to me.

I got dressed, picked up my bag and my keys, and walked out of my own house.

I drove to a coffee shop two blocks from my office and sat there with my laptop and worked through the morning. I took calls from clients. I reviewed the finishing schedule for a project in Buckhead. I did everything I would have done on a normal day because I refused to let what was happening at home take my work from me too.

Wednesday morning I was up before six.

I was at Cole Harmon's office by ten minutes to nine.

The waiting area was on the twenty second floor of a building in Midtown. I gave my name to the woman at the front desk and she told me to take a seat. I sat down and put my bag on my lap and looked out at the city through the glass.

I had never sat in a lawyer's office before in my life.

I was ready.