Chapter 7: Discovery
Discovery did not arrive as a single dramatic envelope. It arrived as deadlines, production logs, and the slow panic of people who had never expected a daughter-in-law to read past the table setting.
Silverline’s attorneys fought the scope in letters that grew longer and less patient. My forensic accountant’s requests, narrowed by the court to marital asset and dissipation questions, still reached far enough to make certain vendor relationships look less like partnership and more like choreography. Ryan’s father stopped using the phrase unfortunate misunderstanding. Ryan’s messages to me, filtered through counsel, became brief and practical: pickup times, the baby’s schedule, a sudden interest in appearing cooperative on paper.
May you like
Mrs. Parker watched the shift without celebration. “They are not becoming decent,” she said. “They are becoming careful.”
Careful was useful. Careful produced cleaner handovers at visitation and fewer late-night tests of my resolve. I used the quieter evenings to update my own credentials, call former colleagues, and remember the voice I had used in conference rooms before the Calloway house taught me to apologize for being tired. The baby grew heavier in my arms. The suitcase stayed unpacked in Mrs. Parker’s spare room longer than I had planned, not from indecision, but because stability for a two-month-old did not require a victory lap.
