Chapter 3 - The Consultation
Outside the main entrance of the hospital, the Boston air was biting, cold, and heavy with a miserable autumn drizzle. I stood beneath the wide canvas awning, pulled my coat collar up around my neck, and opened the ride-sharing application on my phone.
My thumb hovered instinctively over Thomas’s name in my contact list.
Under normal circumstances, my muscle memory would have driven me to type out a familiar reassurance: Discharged. Heading home now. Don’t worry about a thing.
I had spent seven solid years making sure Thomas never had to worry about domestic friction, housekeeping disruptions, or emotional friction.
That exhausting habit ended right here, beneath the flickering fluorescent lights of the hospital canopy.
I locked my phone screen without sending a single word. Instead, I changed the destination address in the app to a very different location across town.
Sarah Levin’s private family law office in the Back Bay.
Sarah had been one of my closest, fiercest friends since our undergraduate days at Boston University, and she had spent the last decade building a formidable reputation as one of the sharpest, most uncompromising divorce attorneys in the state.
When I pushed open the frosted glass door of her office forty minutes later, Sarah looked up from her mahogany desk, took one look at my face, and dropped her pen.
“My God, Emily,” she whispered, standing up so fast her executive chair rolled backward and hit the bookcase. “What happened to you?”
I offered a grim, tight smile. “I know. I look fantastic.”
“You look like an elegantly dressed hostage who just survived a shipwreck,” she said, marching around the desk to take both of my icy hands in hers. “How critically ill were you, really?”
“Sick enough to nearly die.”
“Wait. Your text last month said you were just going in for a routine, scheduled appendectomy.”
“That was the sanitized family version I gave my parents so they wouldn't panic in Ohio,” I replied softly.
Sarah’s expression instantly darkened from friendly concern into pure, lethal lawyer mode. “Where is Thomas? Why aren't you going home to him?”
I let go of her hands, walked over to her pristine leather guest chair, and set my tablet down squarely in the center of her desk.
“I want a divorce, Sarah.”
Sarah paused, letting the heavy words settle into the quiet room. She did what any exceptional friend and brilliant attorney should do: she didn't immediately cheer or pop champagne. She looked deep into my eyes to test my resolve.
“Are you completely sure, Emily? You’ve built your entire adult life around that man.”
“I built a life around a ghost,” I said, my voice dead steady. “Let me show you why.”
I woke up the tablet and tapped open the password-protected folder. Methodically, clinically, I walked her through the entire nightmare.
Thirty days admitted to room 17-B. Twenty days of restricted transplant operations where emergency leave was legally permitted under Section Four, Article Twelve. Zero emergency requests filed by his employee ID. Ten additional days of normal professional activity, media interviews, and celebratory dinners.
Zero visits. Not a single text asking if I was still alive.
By the time I finished laying out the digital evidence, Sarah wasn't trying to talk me down, calm me down, or suggest marriage counseling. Her jaw was set in a hard, uncompromising line.
“What do you want out of the settlement financially?” she asked, her pen poised over a blank yellow legal pad.
“I want exactly half the equity in our Back Bay condo,” I said without hesitation.
“That’s it?” Sarah raised an eyebrow, surprised by my modesty. “You could easily sue for spousal support given the immense income disparity, plus damages for emotional abandonment during a life-threatening medical crisis.”
“My own salary covers my living expenses just fine. My savings stay mine, and his stay his. We each keep our respective cars. We don't have any children, so there are no custody battles tying us together.”
“Emily, you have enough leverage here to squeeze him hard. He’s up for the Chief of Surgery chair next month. A messy public scandal involving his wife nearly dying of peritonitis while he ignored her for a glamorous transplant PR campaign would destroy his chances overnight.”
I looked down at the glowing screen, where Thomas’s smiling face from the hospital newsletter seemed to mock me from the background.
“I don't want his money, Sarah,” I said quietly. “And I don't want a messy, prolonged public war.”
I looked up, meeting her gaze head-on. “I just want it clean.”
May you like
Sarah studied me for a long, silent moment, searching my face for any hint of hesitation or lingering doubt. When she found none, she nodded slowly, pulled the legal pad an inch closer, and clicked her pen into place.
“All right,” she said, her voice filled with professional respect. “Let’s make it clean.”
