Chapter 14: Distance
Daniel requested a meeting without lawyers. I declined.
He sent a letter in his own hand. I filed it with counsel and replied through them: all substantive discussion remained on the scheduled track. The track did not include late drives to the dock or appeals to a version of us that had existed before an employee’s hand and a husband’s silence.
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I took on an additional foundation initiative—a mentorship grant for women in technical fields—and let the work occupy the hours that used to go to informal company rescue. Money, properly named, did more than money offered as marital weather. I slept the sleep of a person whose phone no longer buzzed with other people’s emergencies disguised as shared destiny.
Once, in town for a dentist appointment, I saw Daniel across a café. He raised a hand. I nodded and kept walking. The gesture cost me nothing and gave him nothing he could spend. Balance, at last, in a minor key.
