She arrived forty minutes later with coffee and a roll of packing tape, because apparently her answer to emotional crisis was always practical weirdness. She taped butcher paper over the broken photo so I wouldn’t cut myself and made me sit down while she heated soup I did not want.
By late afternoon, Nathan still hadn’t called.
Sandra did. “He retained Gerald Ashford.”
I knew the name. Anyone in Fairfield County who had ever whispered about a vicious divorce knew the name. Gerald specialized in polished brutality. He billed like a surgeon and liked to sound reasonable right before he carved something open.
“Good,” Sandra said before I could respond. “Now we know who we’re dealing with.”
The first retaliation came faster than I expected.
The following Friday, I stopped at the pharmacy to pick up prenatal vitamins and antacids. I was wearing leggings, an oversized wool coat, and no makeup. My hair was up in the kind of bun that announces to the world you are operating on functionality alone.
The pharmacist smiled at me. “Almost time, huh?”
“Feels like it.”
She rang everything up. I handed over my card.
Declined.
I frowned. “That’s weird.”
I tried another card.
Declined.