t was nearly noon and the sky still gray. I’d barely a hint of hunger despite my breakfast being one small pot of tea and two small cups of coffee. The stories of four women stuck in my gut.
-One a young mother of two whose husband lay hospitalized with diagnoses of Covid and chronic alcoholism.
-One on her fourth day of waiting for a judge to decide whether her life warranted a protection order her from her spouse who blackened her eye and broke more than bones.
-One whose soon to be ex flaunted a presumably new love interest the very week he’d demanded even more money if she wanted to move on with her life.
-One just a month away from her trial date, disabled and on social security, and panicked about the spreadsheet her spouse put forth as purported truth of their financial picture.
I was lawyer to none of them, but in a matter of hours either they or someone who cared about them reached out to me over text, phone, email, or a cup of java. Each faced some of their darkest hours in the final days of winter. Though I’ve not actively practiced divorce law for a good while, on this day I was in the world of dissolving marriages, mounting desperation, and disappearing dreams.
