Five Minutes in a Lawyer’s Office by Angela Munley

Five Minutes in a Lawyer’s Office

Angela Munley

It was a familiar feeling to her. That pain in your hand. You know? The one where it feels like your heart is going to burst and the pressure spreads to your hand . More like an aching tooth, than sharp pain . Rubbing it didn’t help.

(Maybe you don’t know what that feels like. In truth, I hope you don’t.)

It was embarrassment. The kind she felt when she had holes in her bottoms of her shoes and the cold snow was seeping in and melting. She always wondered if the other kids noticed. The rest of her life her feet would always feel cold. Looking back, she wondered if this is psychosomatic, or real?

Pieces of her felt like a failure. Not at life but at fixing her marriage. Why didn’t he love her? Was it him? Was it her? It was him, but she didn’t know that at this point. She had always loved him, but he didn’t even know what love was nor did he respect her enough to be honest about how he really felt.

It hurt. She felt like she was going to burst open from rage. She wondered what would happen if her soul were unleashed right now. It felt like it would expand out across the Earth and leave it as just a burnt-out shell .

No one understood. How could they? She didn’t tell anyone what was happening. She just endured it. She would attempt to say she needed help but people told her, “You can handle it.” Then change the subject. It was true but should she have to, alone? Maybe she wasn’t there for anyone else before so why should she expect it of others? Moving forward she would make it a life intention to be kind especially when she didn’t know why someone was mad or upset. It’s not personal, until it’s personal. To listen more and be there if someone is going through this kind of nonsense. But only if it was healthy for her.

She looked at her palm and rubbed it. It still ached. She didn’t want to eat or talk or live anymore. It would pass quickly. She had concluded she wasn’t suicidal, probably more homicidal at this point. Her love for her children was all that really kept her from ending this shitty person.

He lied. She sat avoiding eye contact at that large table in the lawyer’s conference room. Emotionless outside, still in her raging hurricane of anger and disappointment . She let him lie, because she knew that once he signed that paper she was free. Free of any strings or complications other than communication about their children. He apparently always had been lying to her. But this was it.