Going Home - Chapter 5

I spent the rest of the weekend dreading the upcoming week. Monday was the first sit-down with Terri’s lawyers, where I was going to find out just how badly I was getting screwed. The guy she was banging must have been a lawyer or had some powerful friends, because the email I’d received came from one of the biggest firms in the city. I, on the other hand, had to shell out for a guy who I was pretty sure nearly failed out of night school to get his degree. I’d at least hoped my guy would have negotiated a more convenient place for us to meet, or some kind of remote conference, but no. I had to go back up to New York, which added to my anxiety all weekend.

Getting a bus back to Charleston looked to be impossible, so I finally agreed to let my dad give me a ride back to the airport, although I put my foot down about getting a ride back, since buses from the airport were easier to catch. Thankfully, Dad was the one to take me. He might not be the most loving man, but his terse manners made for a much less infuriating car ride. We talked about sports for a bit before both going quiet, passing the rest of the trip in silence.

The plane trip itself wasn’t so bad, although it was hard to bend my leg enough to get into the seat at the back of the airplane, and my knee throbbed the whole time. By the time I finally made it into the downtown skyscraper her lawyers’ offices were in, I’d been traveling for half of the day and I was both exhausted and in pain. The receptionist led me past a dozen lawyers in suits that cost more than I’d made in a month on the force and into a stark but still somehow elegant conference room that was empty except for my lawyer, who’d beaten me to the meeting. In his cheap suit and badly tied tie, he was a stark contrast to everything around him.

While we waited, well past the time the meeting was scheduled to start, I tried to ask him questions about what they were going to ask for and how much this was going to end up costing, but as usual, he seemed a bit clueless. Had I been able to afford anyone better, I would have fired the guy the day I’d met him, but this was one of those ‘you get what you pay for’ situations.

Finally, Terri, her lawyer, and a small army of minions came pouring into the conference room. I couldn’t decide if it was Terri being chronically late as usual or some kind of tactic devised by her attorney, but either way, we’d been waiting here for a while and I was starting to lose my temper.

“It’s about time,” I said, not standing up or shaking anyone’s hands.

“We apologize for the delay, Mr. Brewer. We wanted to speak with our client first and make sure we had a firm understanding of the best way to get this unfortunate business settled as painlessly as possible for everyone.”

It was all I could do to keep from rolling my eyes. If I’d stopped this guy on the street while I was still a cop, he’d definitely be the ‘do you know who I am’ kind of asshole who thought the rest of the world was made just for him. I also couldn’t help but notice how close Terri was to him. She’d scooted over a little bit as soon as they’d both sat down, so the arms of their chairs were touching, and she was leaning in a little. We’d been together long enough that I knew her body language pretty well, and everything I knew about her screamed that she was sleeping with this guy. Of course, it was impossible to tell if this was the guy she’d been sleeping with all along or if this was something new, although he probably had the money and lifestyle that Terri was looking for, so it wouldn’t surprise me.

Although I’m pretty sure she saw the expression on my face as I looked back and forth between the two of them, the lawyer seemed clueless as he waited for me to thank him for how efficiently he planned on bleeding me dry.

“Great,” I said, deadpan.

“I’d like to start off this conversation by just getting down to the meat of it. In most divorce cases, there’s a lot of he said, she said with accusations of all kinds of misdeeds going back and forth. I know that usually makes everyone feel better, since these kinds of things are always contentious, but in the end, they don’t change the calculations for exactly how to best dissolve the marriage. I find it better to skip the animosity and just focus on what needs to be done. I am obligated to ask, are you both sure this is what you want? I’m not a counselor, but these kinds of proceedings can be painful, so I like to start by asking if you’re sure you both want to go through with this.”

“Absolutely,” I said, glaring at Terri.

“Fuck you,” was her response.

She looked like she wanted to say something else, but her lawyer put his hand on her arm, stopping her.

“Okay. I just wanted to get that done before we moved forward. Now, I’ve spoken with Mrs. Brewer and I want you to know that we aren’t looking to cause you undue hardships. I know it’s easy to look across this table and think ‘this guy just wants to take me for a ride,’ which is probably true in a lot of divorce cases. While I am Mrs. Brewer’s attorney, I find these things go better if we don’t focus on causing pain and just try to find an equitable solution, making sure everyone gets what they need to go their separate ways.”

“Sounds great,” I said, although my tone of voice still didn’t match the other words.

He was slick, I had to give it to him, but he’d basically managed to say nothing in a whole lot of words, and I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, because I knew damn well Terri didn’t give a crap about anyone but her getting what she needed.

“In that spirit,” he continued, not seeming to notice, or maybe just not caring that I wasn’t buying his little speech. “I thought it best if, instead of taking things straight to mediation, we see if we can’t get work this all out here today. Mrs. Brewer has agreed to a no-fault divorce, forgoing any marital support or even any claims on shared bank accounts, allowing each party to take whatever assets they currently have in their possession and go their separate ways.”

“Really?” I said, surprised.

On the face of it, that actually wasn’t that good of a deal. After cleaning out all of our shared accounts, she’d left me with a lease to buy out of and some crap furniture, so she was still coming out way ahead. But it also meant there wouldn’t be a fight back and forth, depositions, talking to mediators, or any of that nonsense, which also meant I could pay my lawyer off for this one meeting and be done with it. Considering that, even if everything went my way, this would basically be the same deal I’d end up with, except with the added benefit of owing a stack of cash to my lawyer. If I could get the same deal without that, I’d take it in a heartbeat. I just had trouble believing she’d go for it.

“Really. I know you two are upset with each other, but we aren’t the enemy here. Everyone wants this situation to resolve as quickly and easily as possible. There is, however, one caveat that, if we can agree on it, we could walk out of this office today, with everything settled and signed off on.”

“What is it?” I said, knowing that this was the other shoe.

I mentally kicked myself for being momentarily hopefully, even with reservations.

“There’s the issue of a vehicle purchased by the two of you while you were married, that Mrs. Brewer has an equal claim to. Instead of fighting it out in court for this car that’s been in storage for several years, save a few periodic trips for maintenance, we are suggesting you sign over the car and, in return, Mrs. Brewer signs an agreement today agreeing to a no-fault divorce.”

“You should really consider that,” my lawyer said, leaning over to whisper to me.

“The hell I will,” I said, not quite yelling, but getting close to it, before turning my attention to Terri. “You’re dreaming if you think you’re getting my car. You don’t even like cars that much, so what the hell do you want with mine.”

“Because it’s the only thing you have worth a damn,” she yelled back, half standing up to lean over the table in my direction. “Had I known I was marrying a broke-ass mother-fucker, I would’ve stayed with Dave Shupert.”

The only reaction her lawyer had to her outburst was to put his hand on her forearm, which had the effect of making her sit back down, but otherwise acted as if it never happened.

“I think it would be worth reconsidering that stance, Mr. Brewer. Your wife is entitled to her portion of the marital assets, and that includes your current guaranteed severance from the city. We are hoping to avoid an extended, and expensive, court battle that will ultimately end in further costs to you. We are offering to forgo targeting your severance and any alimony or future considerations for a car that you haven’t driven in years, the net worth of which is significantly lower than the amount you would have to pay if mediation, or a court judgment, goes against you. Which is, again, not even taking into account the legal costs you would endure over that time period. Any mediator who hears our offer would find it more than equitable, and see that Mrs. Brewer is being completely reasonable in her offer.”

“Why should I pay her anything. The bitch cheated on me.”

I could see him squeeze her arm again, probably to keep her in her seat, which was another suggestion of how well he actually knew her, since it took almost nothing to set her off.

“If you try to argue infidelity, you’re going to have to prove it, and we both know you don’t have any. I understand you are upset with the situation, and if you want to reject this offer, that is your prerogative, but you should consult with your lawyer, because any choice other than agreeing with us is just going to cost you more money than the car is worth.”

My lawyer was making eyes at me, and I knew he thought I should just settle. If I had a better lawyer, maybe I would have stood a chance to fight her, but unless my knees magically recovered and I got back into the NFL, that wasn’t going to happen. And I couldn’t go Terri’s route and sleep my way into one of the best law firms in the city.

I sat quietly, brooding, not even paying attention to her lawyer anymore as he continued to pepper me with reasons why I should take the deal. It made perfect sense why he was working so hard to get me to just sign over the car. If she was a paying client, they’d probably be pushing for trial so they could bill her for every cent she had, but since he was probably bankrolling this himself, he just wanted her happy and this whole thing over.

The problem was, he was right. I knew what my lawyer was charging for this, and his rates would go up if we went to a mediator and even more if we went to court. The car was worth some money, but it wasn’t in pristine condition yet. I’d made a lot of progress on it in the last several years, but it would have been another five years of off and on weekends before it was back to its original shape, which meant it still had to be sold off as a project car, which lowered its price tag.

Of course, that was another reason why I knew the only reason Terri was doing this was to get to me. She wasn’t going to make a lot of money selling it and she definitely wasn’t going to keep it, since she’d always hated that car. She just wanted to hurt me and knew this was one of the few ways she had to get to me.

The longer I thought about it, the more I found myself stuck. I loved the car and had longed to have it to the point where I could drive it for long road trips, but I also wanted this whole ordeal done and behind me. I wanted Terri out of my life, and if I fought this it was going to be more trips back here, seeing her for mediation, depositions, and court.

“Fine. She can have it, but she has to pay off the rest of the storage lot contract,” I said.

Buying out my lease on the storage spot wasn’t actually all that much money, but I wanted to be able to save a little dignity out of this whole situation.

“I’ll be …” she started to say, before he squeezed again.

“I think that will be fine. We’ll have final agreements sent to your attorney, and once everything is signed we will pick up the title and keys. And that will be, as they say, that.”

“Fine,” I said, getting up and walking out.

I’d already had to pay for my lawyer, so the least he could do was finish up that bullshit without me. I might not have loved being back home, but I couldn’t get out of this city fast enough. Everything about the place reminded me of Terri now, which just made me more pissed off.

I still had several hours till my flight back, since I didn’t want to be in the city any longer than I had to, so I decided to stop by the station on my way to the airport. Although I’d never really loved the job, I’d made some friends over the years that it would be good to see. There was also some paperwork that they’d said I needed to finish and I figured I could save myself the hassle of having to mail it back and checking to see if it made it to the right place.

Making my way carefully up the front steps of the precinct was a weird experience. For two years I’d gone through these doors five or six days a week and worked so many doubles I swear there were days I’d spent more time there than I did at home. Walking through the doors now, it felt completely different. It looked like the place I remembered, but I didn’t fit in there anymore.

This was carried over even further when the desk sergeant, a man I didn’t know, saw me making my way towards the door that led into the back of the station and said, “Can I help you?”

He looked annoyed, like I was going to be a problem that he’d have to deal with.

“I used to work here and they needed me to fill out some paperwork about my injury,” I said, pointing at my knee.

It was actually paperwork about my severance, but I felt like being a dick and wanted to make him feel bad for hassling someone injured on the job. At least, that’s what I’d been going for.

He wasn’t even fazed, swiveling back to his computer as he said, “Let me check.”

I knew he was checking the appointment system they’d put in last year in one of their efficiency pushes to streamline internal meetings with vendors and the like, which, in true NYPD fashion, just made everything less efficient.

“I’m not in the system. I was in town for some stuff and I thought it would be easier to come by and fill it out instead of having them mail it to me and then mail it back.”

“You’re going to need to call and get someone to put you on the schedule. You can’t just ‘drop in’ on a police station.”

“Look, I know you’re just doing your job, but I …”

I started to say, trying to keep my temper under control, when a guy I did know, but whose name I couldn’t remember, walked through the door on the other side of the counter, about to drop some kind of report in front of the desk sergeant.

“Brewer? What are you doing here?”

“I was in the area and wanted to get some of my last paperwork cleared up.”

“I was just telling him he wasn’t on the schedule and couldn’t just stop by when he wanted.”

“It’s okay, Steve. He used to work here until he got shot in the line of duty,” he said gesturing towards my leg.

“Ohh, my bad. Do you know where you’re headed?” He said, like I hadn’t just told him the same thing.

“I was going to see Lieutenant Folson.”

While there was a chance he wasn’t there, we were right in between shifts, so I was probably in luck, unless he suddenly switched to graveyard. Which was unlikely.

“Okay, go on back,” he said, buzzing me through.

By the time I got through the door, the guy whose name I’d forgotten was gone, off to wherever he’d been originally headed to. Walking through the precinct halls towards the lieutenant’s office, I saw the occasional face I sort of recognized, but none of the people I worked with regularly. Admittedly, the shift I normally worked hadn’t started yet, but it was strange to have spent two years here and feel like a complete outsider after being away for just over a month.

At least Lieutenant Folson’s secretary recognized me, but he wasn’t around and she was on the phone, so all she did was shove a stack of papers at me with small posted notes stuck to the places I needed to sign. She was on the same phone call when I finished initialing and signing and handed it back to her, giving the briefest of waves as she essentially dismissed me.

I’d been at the station for under an hour and spoken only a handful of sentences, mostly trying to convince the desk sergeant that I was supposed to be there. It was an eye-opening experience which reinforced that, even when I got my feet back under me, New York was not the place for me.

The only thing the city did have going for it, at least from my West Virginia point of view, was good food, so I killed another hour grabbing something to eat at one of the corner places not far from the station before catching a cab back to the airport.

After several hours on a plane and several more on the bus, it was late, I was tired, still angry about the car, and mildly depressed after my visit to the station. Standing at the bus stop, I looked down the dark road towards my parents’ house and debated if I should just bite the bullet and call Mom.

While I didn’t particularly want to walk home in the dark, especially not on the poorly lit road and its occasional curve, just waiting to become roadkill, I also didn’t want to explain to Mom what had happened with Terri and her lawyer. I’d gotten the car after moving away, so Mom didn’t really understand my love of it, so even money she’d expound, at length, on why I made the right choice to trade it away in exchange for a no-fault divorce. While she might be right, I was still in the mood to be pissed about it, and hearing why I shouldn’t be pissed would just make me all that much angrier.

I was about to swing my crutches in the direction of home when a voice called out behind me, pulling me up short.

“Henry?” a sweet, accented voice said.

I turned around to see Rosita carrying a very large, and apparently empty bag, walking towards me. It wasn’t a big city, so everything was close to everything else, but as Buxton went, we were on the other side of it from her restaurant. Except for the Hole in the Wall, there wasn’t much down here for her to be out walking, and she didn’t really strike me as the drinking in a dive bar type.

“Hey, what are you doing out here?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing. I saw you getting off the bus.”

“I had the meeting with my wife and her attorney this morning in New York. I just got back. It’s kind of late for deliveries, isn’t it?”

“They turned this store into a place for people who don’t have food to eat,” she said, pointing at a building I vaguely remember as a feed store, next to the post office. “Every night I pack up the food I prepared for the day but couldn’t sell and bring it to them.”

“That’s really thoughtful.”

“It’s that or throwing it away. Why would I throw away perfectly good food when there are families here in town not getting enough to eat? That would be a waste.”

“That’s true, but a lot of people would still toss the food. You coming out here to drop it off is really nice.”

She just shrugged, looking mildly uncomfortable at the praise, which was endearing in its own right.

“How did the meeting with your wife go?”

“About as well as I expected. She’s agreed to a no-fault divorce, which means I don’t have to go back for court or anything and it won’t cost me much more in lawyer fees, but only if I give her my car?”

“The truck I saw you driving the other day?”

She’d been with a customer when I’d walked across the street to her restaurant the other day and I’d thought she’d been busy with that big order and hadn’t paid attention when I’d left, so I was surprised she’d even noticed what I’d been driving. It did explain the surprise in her voice, since Mom’s truck was fifteen years old and beat to hell. Not something that anyone would be fighting to get their hands on.

“No, that’s my mother’s. I just borrowed it to get around the other day. My car is, or was at least, a sweet sixty-four mustang I bought with my first big paycheck when I got into the NFL. It was the car of my dreams when I was a kid. Of course, considering my first big NFL paycheck was also my last big paycheck, I should have saved the money, but I was young and didn’t know my career would be so short-lived. Anyway, there wasn’t much use for a car in New York, since traffic is terrible and I could just take the subway everywhere, so I just kept it in a storage place. I’d half planned on driving it back after one of these trips to deal with my wife, but I guess she decided she didn’t get enough out of me when she emptied my bank accounts, because it was her price to settle everything easier.”

“You agreed?”

“I didn’t have much of a choice. Until I get a new job, I need to save every penny I have, and even my crappy lawyer cost me a bunch, which doesn’t even cover stuff like court costs. I guess it was just more worth it to get this whole thing behind me and move on with my life, no matter how much I liked the car.”

“It’s still a crappy thing to do. Where I come from, you don’t mess with a man’s car.”

“I think that’s why she did it. She already emptied our bank accounts on the way out and she knew I didn’t really have anything left, so I think she saw this as an opportunity to get one last shot in on the way out of the marriage.”

“Puta,” Rosita said.

“That pretty much sums her up.”

“Is someone coming to pick you up?”

“No. It’s late and I didn’t want to bug my parents for a ride. I already feel like a sad sack living back in my childhood home while I get things figured out, I don’t want to add to my list of shame by calling my parents for rides every time I need to go somewhere.”

I don’t know why I was being so honest with her. We’d only had the one conversation and, while I found her interesting, we didn’t really know each other. Maybe it’s because the last time I been single talking to a woman, I’d been a sophomore in high school. It was strange, but the moment I’d met her, I felt very comfortable around her.

“I get that. When I moved here, I lived in Tommy’s house and was not working. I felt like a big …” she said, and then paused, looking up into the distance. “Un vividor. Sorry, I realized I don’t know the word in English. Of course, I’m still living in his house, so I guess I am one.”

“That’s not the same thing. Tommy invited you to come out and stay here. It’s completely different. And now he left you the house, so it’s yours. If anything you’re honoring his memory by carrying on yall’s plan, building the house and everything.”

“I’d like to think so. You changed the subject again. If you don’t have a ride, how are you going to get back home? I can’t imagine walking on those is much fun, and it can’t be good for your knee.”

“I did it when I came back last month. Sometimes it’s nice to just get the air and do things myself.”

“I think you are being very proud and stubborn. The roads here are very dark and you are wearing dark clothing. It’s dangerous.”

I just shrugged, she’d pretty much hit the nail on the head. I’d rather do something dangerous and painful like swinging home on my crutches rather than call my parents for more rides than I absolutely had to take.

“What if I gave you a ride home instead?”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I know I don’t have to, but I’d like to, if you’ll let me.”

“I guess I’d be a jerk to still say no. Thanks, I appreciate it.”

“Besides, this way we can keep talking without standing weirdly out on the side of the road,” she said, directing me to a small, light blue four-door car. I put my crutches in the back seat and used the car to balance while I eased myself into the front passenger seat.

“You said you were applying to be a teacher, last time we talked?”

“Yeah. I won’t hear anything back for a while though, since they won’t start hiring staff for next year until halfway through the summer when the new budgets come out. It gives me time to work on my teaching certificate, at least, even if it means I’m stuck here for a few more months. Once I know I have a job and what I’ll be making, I can budget out the rest of my money and get an apartment for a few months, which’ll be a big step over living with my parents.”

“And then you’ll be leaving, right?”

“Thankfully,” I said, and then held up a hand as she gave me a side-eyed glance. “Not that I’m saying Buxton is a bad place to live. I know your brother liked it here and you decided to stay, but I grew up here and it’s a really small town. It doesn’t matter what you achieve in life, back here I’ll always be the idiot teenager I was. I can’t go to the grocery store without someone pointing out some dumb stunt I pulled. It’s why I wanted to get out of here in the first place.”

“I get it. My village back home was small, and I was always Tommy’s little sister. It wasn’t until I came here that I got to be my own person.”

“Exactly. I just want to be my own person. Great way to put it.”

We fell into silence as I pointed out my parents’ house and its driveway, which could be hard to see in the dark. She pulled in behind Mom’s truck and put it into park.

I expected her to just tell me to have a good night, which would have been the signal that it was time for me to get out of the car so she could go home.

Instead, she turned and asked, “So how long is your knee going to be like that?”

“They didn’t give me a time frame after the surgery, but I have a follow-up appointment on Monday in Charleston, and I’m hoping they’ll give me some kind of time frame. They’re also supposed to be getting me physical therapy, although that’s partially my fault. Had I stayed in New York, they would have started it the week after the surgery, but the city and my NYPD retirement insurance didn’t have any providers in their network for me to go see. I’ve talked to the insurance company and they found someone, but it took some time and they want me to get a primary care physician and get a referral to them first. Buncha crap red tape, but civil service plans suck, so it’s either pay for it out of pocket, or wait.”

“You’re parents are going to drive you?”

“I was just going to take the morning bus out, find somewhere to wait, and catch the evening bus that goes back this way, although depending on what they do, I might have to get them to pick me up from the bus stop.”

“When is your appointment?”

“Three-thirty.”

“That has you waiting for a really long time. Did you want me to take you?”

“What? No, you’ve got your restaurant to run and that’ll be like half your day. I couldn’t ask you to do that.”

“You still seem to be confusing my offering to do something with you asking me to do it. I am offering to do you a favor. I have a girl who works for me sometimes and we wouldn’t have to leave until one, so the restaurant shouldn’t be a problem. I can have her watch the place, and then I’ll close up when we get back. School is out for the summer, so this really is our slow season and I can prep ahead of time on Sunday. Besides, since moving here I’ve only left Buxton twice, so it might be nice to get a change of scenery.”

“Are you sure? It’s still an awful lot of work.”

“I am sure. I’ll pick you up here around one, maybe a little early if lunch is really slow. Okay?”

“Okay. I really appreciate it.”

“Good,” she said, giving me the same smile she had at the restaurant the other day, where she looked slightly down and to the side while one corner of her mouth turned up.

It was incredibly endearing.