Beside him sat Garrison Ford, the man the tabloids called the “Butcher of Broadway.” Garrison wasn’t just a divorce attorney; he was a predator wrapped in Italian silk and French cuffs. He didn’t just win cases; he conducted forensic autopsies on marriages, leaving the opposition in such total financial and emotional ruin that they lacked the breath to even protest. Garrison smoothed a silver silk tie with fingers that probably cost more per hour than I had made in my entire career as a struggling artist.
“She’s late,” I heard Keith murmur, his voice carrying easily across the aisle. He didn’t bother to lower it. He wanted me to hear the countdown. “Or maybe she finally realized it’s cheaper to just give up and find a bridge to sleep under. Queens is lovely this time of year, isn’t it?”
I sat alone at the defense table, my hands interlaced so tightly my knuckles were white against the dark wood. There were no stacks of legal files in front of me, no team of sharp-eyed paralegals whispering strategy, no pitcher of ice water to soothe my parched throat. I had nothing but a charcoal-gray dress I’d owned for five years and the terrifying realization that I was standing in the path of a semi-truck with no brakes.
I stared at the empty judge’s bench, trying to remember the breathing exercises my therapist had taught me before Keith had cut off the insurance to pay for her. In for four, hold for four, out for four. But the air in the room was too heavy to move. I was an architect of silence, trying to build a wall out of nothing, while the man I had loved for seven years prepared to bulldoze the last of my dignity into the Manhattan pavement.w
