“Daniel, I’d advise—”
“I know what you’d advise. I’ve read it.”
Daniel turned toward me.
His voice was unexpectedly steady.
“Fifty-fifty. Everything. The accounts, the retirement, the equity in the house. Emily gets first right to the house if she wants it. And I’ll cover her legal fees, because I caused them.”
The room went silent.
Naomi’s pen paused an inch above her legal pad.
Halloran opened his mouth.
Then wisely closed it.
“That’s very generous,” Naomi said carefully. “Emily?”
I thought about it.
For weeks, I assumed I would fight for the house.
The house where I had hung every curtain and painted every wall.
But sitting there, I realized I didn’t want to live inside a museum of what my marriage had pretended to be.
“I don’t want the house,” I said. “I’d like to sell it and split the proceeds evenly. I’d like a fresh start somewhere that doesn’t have a guest room I cried in.”
Daniel’s mouth twitched into a tiny, sad almost-smile.
“I’d like that too.”
The papers took an hour to review.
Ten seconds to sign.
