States of Grace by Mandy Miller (top 100 books of all time checklist .TXT) 📕

life was like with Manny. Leafy afternoon walks through Riverside Park in New York, oblivious to the cold, warmed by the growing fire between us. How miserable I was when he went home to Miami after graduation and I stayed behind. How he cried when I told him I’d enlisted. His sweet missives when I was deployed—how he yearned for us to be together again, to have a family of our own. The care packages of M&Ms and foot powder which he cautioned in the accompanying note should be stored and consumed separately. How he did his best to keep my demons and leg pain at bay after he coaxed me south and found me my job as an ASA. South Florida was my home too, he assured me. The long hours we both worked were difficult, but we were building something, weren’t we? His work as a real estate developer took him away to Tallahassee, some at first, and later, a lot, but he always called to say goodnight. At least until I wasn’t there to answer the phone. The all-American success story on the outside. But on the inside, trouble was brewing.

I shake myself. “I just want to get on with it. With my life, or whatever’s left of it. Or, maybe I’m done for and there’s nothing left.”

Eyes glued to the road, Vinnie says, “There’s plenty left. Trust me. I know what done for looks like. And you ain’t that.” He slams on the brakes, shaking a fist. “Goddamn it! Use a turn signal why don’t ya! And besides, now you’ve got someone else to be responsible for.”

“You, my friend, are more than responsible for yourself. And that’ll be ten bucks.”

“Jesus, woman. I meant Miranda,” he says and we both laugh hard. “You’re gonna be fine, Gracie. Better than fine. Great. See, you and me and Miranda, we’re survivors from way back.”

***

The mediation is being held in a broom closet-sized room in the old wing. I know the location well. It’s the place where summer interns went to do the dirty, at least until courthouse space was at a premium and it was converted into a hearing room. But “converted” is a gargantuan overstatement. The room is scarcely big enough for a scarred wooden table and five rickety chairs, one for each party and their counsel, and one for the mediator. Windowless, the space is lit by one flickering strip which chirps like a cricket.

I’m the first to arrive and choose the seat nearest the door, putting my briefcase on the adjacent chair which would be for my attorney, if I had one. I’m going it alone. Divorce lawyers make me sick, what with their shiny suits and vicious, underhanded tactics, like the mean girls in high school. Poke, poke, poke away until you expose a weakness, and then poke even harder until it bleeds. Not in service of freedom or justice, not even to win—they get paid no matter who comes out on top—but for the almighty dollar.

A couple of minutes after I arrive, a doughy, bespectacled woman enters, trailed by Manny and a tall brunette in a sleek suit and sexy librarian horn-rimmed glasses.

“Janice Bucknell. I’m your mediator,” the doughy woman says, extending a hand.

The brunette chimes in. “Candace Knight, counsel for Mr. Martinez.” Candace doesn’t offer to shake my hand and sits beside Manny, crossing her long legs into pretzel knots.

“Ms. Locke, is it? Or is it Martinez?” Bucknell asks.

“Locke. I kept my maiden name.”

“At least that’s one less piece of paper you’ll have to file when this is all said and done,” Bucknell says.

“Sorry?”

“To change your name back, I mean.”

No one laughs.

“And do you have counsel, Ms. Locke?”

“No, ma’am. I’m representing myself.”

To avoid eye contact with anyone, I occupy myself with reading the divorce petition, even though I can recite chapter and verse on every last allegation Manny leveled against me.

Bucknell explains the ground rules like a school marm who doesn’t want any trouble from her students. Each party will share a written settlement offer with the other, and then retire to separate rooms and she will engage in shuttle diplomacy to identify areas of agreement and define those in dispute. If a compromise results, the settlement agreement will be entered as a court order by a judge and its contents will not become part of the public record, an outcome Manny wants more than anything—wayward wives are hardly good for political careers. Abracadabra, no more “us.” My only play would be to pressure him with the threat of a trial in open court. That is, if I wanted to. But I don’t. A deal’s a deal.

Settlement offers exchanged, I follow Bucknell to an adjacent room.

I flip through the document, looking for the time bomb. It has to be here, given I said I’d sign anything.

“Bottom line, there’s $40,000 in cash, give or take, to split between you,” Bucknell says.

It sounds like a fortune to me now, but it’s a small fraction of what we once had, what we squandered on luxuries that seemed like necessities. Dinners, vacations, fancy cars. The thought sickens me.

“And as for the marital domicile, you may buy out Mr. Martinez’s share, should you so desire,” she says, a preposterous proposition. “If you cannot, as an alternative, he is willing to keep you on the title as joint owner, but he will pay the mortgage and live there. If he sells, he will split any profit with you. As for personal effects, you will work together and submit a written inventory to the court of who wants what.”

That’s it? I get half of everything? No war? No tit for tat on every last pot and pan out of spite? I agreed to sign whatever he wanted, but I didn’t expect he’d make that easy to do. But why? There has to be a catch—I frittered away way more than him, and he can prove it, if he wanted to.

“One last thing, Mr. Martinez will sign a building on Sistrunk