Chapter 13: Four Lines

I filed for divorce at 12:20 on Thursday, on my lunch hour, in my work cardigan.

The clerk slid the form back across the counter and asked if I wanted my maiden name restored.

"Dolan," I said.

She wrote it down without looking up.

"Short," she said. "Good. Fewer boxes."

I ate a granola bar in the parking lot and went back to school and signed in a field trip.

By nine that night I had thirty-one drafts of fifteen seconds, and none of them were good.

They covered Dani's kitchen table like evidence.

Gus was asleep on draft nine, which was the best place for it.

Dani's phone leaned against the sugar bowl, playing the clip Channel 3 had run at six.

Todd stood in front of his brother's house in a navy suit with his hands folded.

"Tomorrow night at Fox Field, I'll answer for what I did," he said. "I'll also ask my wife to come home."

He paused, and he looked into the camera.

"And I'll ask whoever has been in her ear for three months to give us some space."

Dani turned it off with one finger.

"Whoever," she said.

"Judd."

"Nine seasons. I've put his name on that board in forty-foot letters, every time his company sponsored a bat, and I'm 'whoever.'"

"He's trying to make you the villain before I can say anything."

"I know what he's doing. I just wanted to be annoyed out loud for one minute."

She stood up and took her cold tea to the sink.

"Okay. Done. Write your thing."

The front door opened without a knock, because Dani had given my father a key on Monday.

Dad came in with a rotisserie chicken in one hand and a yellow legal pad in the other.