Chapter 10: The First Hearing
The emergency hearing on temporary orders lasted twenty-seven minutes. Julian arrived with the same attorney who had sent the abandonment email and with a carefully arranged expression of patient disappointment. Vivian placed the timeline of the early-morning withdrawals, the insurance cancellation, the locksmith invoice, and the joint-title deed in front of the judge without preamble. She did not raise the fertility report. That document was reserved for a later phase. The judge granted temporary exclusive use of the residence, ordered interim spousal support calculated from the last twelve months of Julian’s documented income, and instructed both parties to preserve every financial record pending full discovery. Julian’s counsel attempted to frame the lock change as a reasonable response to an already broken marriage. The judge was unmoved. Changed locks did not equal abandoned claims. By the time we left the courthouse the house in Cedar Hollow was legally mine to re-enter, and Julian’s first support payment was due in fourteen days.
