I Left My Ex, Now He Regrets

I ran into my ex-husband at the courthouse three years after my first divorce. He worked at the same law firm that my current husband, Ben Carter, had hired. Just 10 days earlier, Ben had shoved me down the porch steps and injured my hand. "This is what your life looks like after leaving me?" I tugged my cuff lower. "Nora, all you have to do is admit you regret leaving me, and I'll help you." The coffee was still made exactly the way I used to take it. He remembered what I liked, yet he was using my misery as leverage, waiting for me to admit I had been wrong. I pulled the documents back. "I'm divorcing Ben. But I don't want your help." …… I had been sitting in the courthouse hallway for less than five minutes when Ben's attorney brought me a draft agreement. According to the draft, Ben was willing to attend marriage counseling and let me come home. In exchange, I was supposed to withdraw my protective order petition and put the divorce on hold. "He's willing to work on the marriage," the young attorney said. I didn't take the pen. Just 10 days earlier, Ben had also said we needed to sit down and talk. When I reached for my phone, he grabbed my wrist. I told him it hurt, but he only squeezed harder. Then he shoved me down the front porch steps. That same hand was still in a wrist brace. Yet the paper described the incident with just one line: "The parties were involved in a dispute." My hand still hurt, but the document didn't even say who had pushed whom. "That description isn't accurate. I'm not signing it." After the young attorney left, someone set an oat milk coffee beside me. I looked up and saw Adam White. He was my ex-husband and the managing partner of White & Shaw LLP. Ben had hired an attorney from White & Shaw LLP. My attorney, Megan Brooks, had already informed opposing counsel of my history with Adam and asked them to run a conflict check. I still hadn't expected him to show up in person. We hadn't seen each other in three years, yet he even remembered that I took only half the usual amount of sugar. His gaze dropped to my frayed cuff and the wrist brace beneath it. "This is what your life looks like after leaving me?" The coat belonged to Ruth. She lived across from me, and its oversized sleeves happened to hide the brace. I had been staying at her place since I got hurt. I gently pushed the coffee back toward him. He opened the agreement. "Ben's willing to make concessions. If you don't want to go home, there are other arrangements we can discuss." "Megan sent over my injury records." "I read them." I looked up. He had read them, and he was still holding that agreement. "My decision hasn't changed." Adam frowned as if he were correcting someone who simply refused to understand. "I'm trying to help you figure out what's actually in your best interest. You don't have a job, you're staying with a neighbor, and you think you can afford to drag this out with him?" My fingers curled reflexively. I was already losing sleep over every one of those problems. Each one was another reminder of how precarious my life had become. "Attorney's fees, rent, follow-up appointments. All of it costs money. Nora, you're almost 40. Are you really going to start over on another impulse, just like you did three years ago?" At the other end of the hallway, Ben was straightening his shirt. He ran a renovation company and was dressed more formally than usual that day. He looked relaxed, with the faintest smile at the corner of his mouth, as though he were only there to pick up a wife who had stormed out after a petty argument. The night before, he had responded to my property retrieval list. His written reply read: You can have your clothes back. Your mother's photo album and the baking pans will be returned only after we have "resolved the other issues." When I filled out the list, I had assumed he would give the album back eventually. I had underestimated how low he would go. He was actually using the things I treasured most to force me to give in. His response was tucked into the agreement. Adam flipped past it. When I still didn't answer, he went on. "At least I never hit you badly enough to leave you like this." He looked at my wrist brace as though he had finally found proof that leaving him had been the wrong choice. "Do you regret walking away now?" The first time Ben squeezed my wrist hard enough to hurt, I had asked myself the same question. I had been terrified Adam would find out. I was just as afraid that everyone who had watched me leave my first marriage would find out too. It felt as though failing to build a better life meant I no longer had the right to say I had been hurt. That fear kept me with Ben for another four months before I finally filed for divorce. Back when I was married to Adam, whenever he stopped speaking to me, I was always the one who apologized first. Once, I missed one of his firm receptions because I was spending my mother's birthday with her. I bought coffee beans as a peace offering and waited outside his building for more than two hours. Every so often, he texted to ask whether I was still there. Only after I was shivering from the cold did he finally come downstairs, pull me into his arms, and tell me I should have done this sooner. At the time, I had only been relieved that he wasn't angry anymore. Now he had put my favorite coffee beside me again and was waiting for the same surrender. During those years, I had spent nights sitting on the edge of the bed, waiting for him to finish working so I could say something to him. When the light went out, I would save it for tomorrow. So many unbearable nights, and in his telling, none of it was harm to me. It seemed that in his eyes, not being beaten was an enormous favor to me. "I'm divorcing Ben, and nothing is going to change that. Don't use my case to build your firm's reputation." Adam's brows drew together. He looked genuinely surprised by what I had said. He set the agreement down. "You really think the worst of me." Then he laid out his condition. "Admit that leaving me was a mistake, and I'll help you. You won't have to keep staying in someone else's home, and you won't have to go back to Ben." He reached over and pinned down the folder resting on my lap. 'I wouldn't have to keep doing the math on rent or sleep in someone else's guest room. It sounds tempting, but coming from my ex-husband, it feels like an apple offered by the serpent. Taking it will only pull me into another kind of trap.' His hand remained on my folder as he waited for me to admit I had been wrong. I gripped the other edge with my left hand and slowly pulled it free. "No. I have my own attorney." "You know when you're nervous, you can barely string a sentence together." My hand went still. Ruth came over carrying a cup of water. She didn't rush me. I didn't answer Adam. I put away the folder and followed Ruth toward the waiting room. Only after we turned the corner did my pace slow. She took my arm, and I leaned against her for a moment. "Just let me stand here for a minute." She waited until I caught my breath, then walked on with me. Adam called after me. "Nora, don't wait until you have nowhere else to turn before you remember me." I didn't stop. I already had a plan.