The judge had signed our divorce decree with the exhausted efficiency of someone who handled dozens of broken marriages every week.
To him, it was another file.
To me, it was the end of nearly a decade of my life.
“Well,” Patricia announced loudly from the courthouse steps, “at least the Monroe house is safe now.”
The family laughed.
About a dozen of them had gathered there.
Grant’s sister, Vivian, wore an expensive linen dress and enormous sunglasses.
His uncle Douglas, who had managed to forget my name repeatedly during our entire marriage, stood beside several cousins and their spouses.
They were dressed more like guests at a celebration than witnesses to a divorce.
And that was exactly why they had come.
They wanted to watch me lose.
They wanted to remember the day the outsider had finally been removed from the Monroe family.
Later, they would tell the story at Thanksgiving.
