The Arbitrator is talking about one specific account of The Departed’s, and without getting into too many of the mechanics of the whole thing, it’s a large account that we’d listed as community property – in part due to The Departed’s refusal to answer questions – but which, based on my own answers to The Arbitrator’s questions, probably actually belongs entirely to The Departed.

I knew I should have been quiet but nobody stopped me, and I was answering carefully, not realizing the implication of what I was saying. Thinking honesty and clarity were helpful virtues.

I raise a couple of issues about this definition of community property and we agree we’ll re-assess my own accounts while The Arbitrator is in with The Departed.

I do the math in my head and decide exactly how much money I’m willing to give him, if it comes to that, to stay in my home. The lawyer hands me some documents and says, You’re good at math, let’s figure out these calculations, and I dispense with the numbers quickly, as well as his belief that I am good at math when the first number I come up with isn’t even close to rational.

And then we’re all just sitting there, the four of us.

The Lawyer remarks, when The Arbitrator is gone for a long time in the other room, it means the other side is being difficult.

We all glance at our watches.

I like him, I say. He seems pleasant and sane.

He looks like a character from Mad Men, says the paralegal.

He does! I say. I hope he has a fully stocked bar in his office, like Don Draper, because he’s going to need it today.

The Lawyer and my father start to chat. I talk to the paralegal. I hear Yiddish or maybe Hebrew being spoken, and switch conversations.

What on earth are you talking about? I ask.

I didn’t know you were M.O.T., says The Lawyer.

What’s M.O.T.? I ask.

Member Of the Tribe, he and my father tell me.

Oh, I say. I never heard that expression. It turns out that his people are from Riga, Latvia; while our people were from nearby Libau.

We’re neighbors, says my father.

They go on about this for a while.

I look at my watch, and the paralegal checks hers. It’s been quite a while, she says. She’s right, too – nearly twice as long as The Arbitrator was with us.

I have to go to the bathroom, but am suddenly overcome with fear of being outside that room. They’re all chatting, so I don’t want to ask someone to go with me, call attention to myself and my need to pee again.

I am terrified I will run into The Departed in the hallway. Just the thought of it sends my mind spinning in a hundred different directions, none of them good.

I hit on a plan: There’s a receptionist in between the arbitration rooms and the restroom. I ask her not to let anyone out of that room until I get back.

She clearly thinks I’m insane.

I understand how she came to that conclusion, but I also understand – I finally understand after eight long years – that when you are afraid of something, there is often a good reason for it, and there is no shame in trying to protect yourself.

I am afraid of him.

She’s not getting it and is being vague, and I take a different tack. I inform her that it would be better for all concerned if there were no accidental meetings between myself and any other parties. I instruct her: She is to ensure that doesn’t happen. She nods in agreement.

I race to the ladies room. When I get back, I thank her as graciously as I can.

We’re back in the room, all five of us, with a counter-offer from The Departed. He’s “remembered” a few things while The Arbitrator was with him, including a balance in a yet another bank account that I remembered – and pointed out to the Arbitrator –  just that morning.

In a normal world, I would not forget eight thousand dollars so easily.

His counteroffer is about what I would have expected, and we rapidly do some more calculations and work the numbers, and send The Arbitrator back with our response.

Maybe I shouldn’t talk so much, I tell the lawyer. Have I screwed something up?

You’re doing fine, he tells me. I see where he’s going with this. You’re doing fine.

The Arbitrator comes back more quickly now; he’s got several versions of proposals now with the time written on each one – offer, counter, counter-counter, counter-counter-counter. I’m starting to become frustrated and can hear my voice become more shrill; I apologize to The Arbitrator. I don’t mean to shout at you, I tell him.

It’s your divorce, he says. Of course it’s stressful. One time, a lady threw a box of tissues as me. She hit me, too.

Everyone laughs.

I remember what I wanted to say. It hasn’t come up yet, I say, but he wants stuff from the house. And I’m fine with that, I want him to have it. But he keeps saying he wants to come in the house, and I’m not comfortable with that. I try to explain why. I tell The Arbitrator, I just want a list. I don’t want him to show up at the house and “forget” whose antique camera that was and take my grandfather’s camera, I say. I will even arrange the mover and pay for it.

Suddenly, my father asks The Arbitrator if he can say something.

Of course he can.

Well, says my father. I have watched how things are and how he behaves and I want to be clear on something. I am very concerned about the safety of my daughter and my granddaughter around that man. My daughter will not say that, but I think it needs to be said and I think needs to be addressed if he still, after a year, cannot produce a list of items he wants.

When The Arbitrator returns, he hands me yet another counter-counter-counter-i’mnotsurewhatnumberofcounterswe’reupto-offer, and a list: Finally, The Departed has managed to produce one. Look it over, he tells me, and cross off what you don’t agree to and put a checkmark next to what you do.

There is nothing on the list I object to him taking – for the most part, it consists of items I would have sold or donated anyway. Not bad stuff, necessarily, but things that don’t go together or are too big for the room space they’re in or just simply reminders that I don’t need.

Still, I cross off one item and say I want it: the master bed. I don’t really want it, but I’ve finally figured out something. If I were to give him everything he wanted, he’d have no argument to win – and would have to start one. So I choose an argument for him that I could not care less about losing. I am thinking of my grandfather’s camera and my grandmother’s flour sifter but what I say I want is the master bed, the last thing on earth I actually hope to keep.

We finesse the numbers yet again; I feel myself wearing down, losing patience. The Arbitrator takes this counter-to-the-nth-power back along with the list of property and “disputed” item.

I say to the paralegal, one of the big lies in marriage and divorce is that when things fall apart, there are always two people to blame. It’s The Big Lie. It takes two people to start a marriage but only one to end it; only one person has to file for divorce; and only one person to be difficult for the costs to skyrocket and the proceedings to drag on endlessly. But people persist in this belief that it takes two, and they paint you with that brush and there’s nothing you can do to stop it, because it’s just a given. Everyone knows: It takes two.

Ain’t that the truth, says The Lawyer.

 

Arbitration Day arrives: Monday. I don’t sleep much the night before, but it’s not the unpleasant kind of sleeplessness with tossing and turning and agonizing hope of sleep. I just lie there. The Siamese has gone crazy, racing around the house all night and chasing the sweet little black and white tuxedo cat we’ve been fostering and hope to adopt if we stay in the house. I finally get up and lock Siamese in the laundry room, thinking he can’t hurt anything in there and nor can I hear him.

When I get up Monday morning, I discover he’s clawed away several inches of linoleum flooring in his efforts to liberate himself. I should be mad – it’s not going to help me sell the house if I have to – but I’m not. I know how he felt: Desperate to be free.

I leave plenty of time for morning traffic, so my father and I arrive an hour early for the arbitration. We sit in Starbucks and I wait for nervous queasiness, but it never arrives. I wait for panicked, sleep-deprived thoughts of things I’ve forgotten to do or need to remind myself to tell the arbitrator, but they don’t arrive either.

Except for a near-constant need to go to the bathroom, I’m about as calm as I’ve ever been. The sensation is strange and mesmerizing: like looking at the sky the day after 9/11 and actually noticing that there were no planes. You would not have noticed that any other day.

We get to the arbitrator’s office and I think I must say goodbye to my father; I was under the impression that he would not be allowed to stay. But the lawyer arrives, with the paralegal, and then the arbitrator, and it’s quite the crowd in the conference room, and everyone agrees it’s fine if he stays. A good idea, even.

The Departed and his lawyer are in another room, and this is how it goes: we all remain separate, and the arbitrator bounces between the rooms trying to get an agreement that everyone will sign. We have four hours to accomplish this, and if there’s no agreement at the end of that time, the arbitrator will decide for us.

My father goes out to the restroom before the formal proceedings begin, and when he returns he says, I think I just saw The Departed’s Lawyer. She was on the verge of tears.

And then we begin. The Lawyer starts by saying that this whole thing should not have dragged on for a year, as this was a very simple divorce; he points out things like the health insurance cancellation, the refusal to answer interrogatory questions; and all the other things The Departed did to delay this proceeding.

The Arbitrator nods and listens, and then he turns to me. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to talk or The Lawyer but The Arbitrator starts asking questions and I just answer them. For a while, it’s just him and me talking. He asks about The Child’s college account; I pull out the papers showing that her own father, not The Departed, deposited the money in that account. I also have the checks – six thousand dollars worth – written from my own account to those of The Departed’s children. I hand him the documentation about my canceled health insurance and a thousand dollar medical bill for The Child that I received as a result of that, in addition to the extra premiums I had to pay – amounting to more thousands of dollars – when my own health insurance cost The Departed twenty dollars per paycheck.

I’m talking for quite a while and normally I’d feel kind of embarrassed about dominating a conversation in such a way, but at this moment it’s actually important that I do and it’s a relief to talk and have someone just listen, even if I am paying handsomely for the privilege.

There’s a pause and The Arbitrator seems to be done asking questions.

Can I say something? I ask.

Of course, he says. This is your proceeding.

Well, I tell him, we’ve talked a lot about money and I get that this is all about money. But I think it’s important to understand too, that I live in my house and there’s a child in the house too; not only that, but I work from that house. This has been a long and difficult year, and it’s had an effect on work; my coworkers have been understanding but they have limits. The Child has already been put through a lot, I say, and I’d like to keep things as stable as I can for her sake. In other words, I two people will sustain even more suffering – possibly a great deal more – if we are forced to move at the end of today’s proceeding.

And then I think to myself, it’s okay to ask for what you want. If there is any time when it is okay, this is that time.

I want to keep my house, I tell him.

It’s The Arbitrator’s job not just to help you come to an agreement, but to tell you what the law is and how it applies to you, but he hasn’t done that yet, and I’ve forgotten that part until he answers me.

Well, he says, we’ll have to see if that’s possible, because it looks like you may owe him quite a bit of money, in that case.

 

My father flies up a few days ahead of the arbitration, and take a few days off work. He wants to do things around the house for me, to help out.

What room should we paint first? he asks.

I’m afraid to paint anything. It feels like counting unhatched chickens, and I don’t want to jinx myself – lose my house or maybe just feel the loss more acutely because I have just allowed myself to become too attached.

My father says, plan to win. Don’t plan for all the contingencies. You can’t live your life that way.

Sure I can, I think. That’s all I’ve done for eight years. Planned for contingencies. Taken no action.

Stared at blank walls.

This is a lot of thought about paint. I’m overthinking paint now.

I have an idea, though: The Child’s room needs to be painted anyway. If the house must be sold, it has to be painted anyway.

We buy paint in toasted pecan and vibrant cajun red; we pry the moldings off the walls and break a couple in the process; we remove the tacky aluminum blind and break it, too. We give The Child a paintbrush and protect the carpet with brown paper. Mostly.

Don’t get attached, Child, I pray to no one in particular.

I’ve done all I can do, and in just a couple of days I will know if it was enough.