My Husband Chose My Best Friend Over Me, So I Took Everything Back novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Gran's Kitchen

Bea feeds Meredith at midnight and sets her straight. Meredith files for divorce before the deadline, and a process server hands her Clark's own petition, filed six days ago, with Anthony Crane's name on it.

My grandmother opened the door before I knocked.

Bea Lang was seventy-one, five foot two, in a flannel robe with a tissue up each sleeve.

She looked at my face, then at the robe I was wearing over nothing much, and stepped aside.

"Kitchen," she said. "Eat first. Cry after. I'll time you."

I told her everything standing at the stove while she cracked eggs.

She did not interrupt once.

When I got to the closet, she put the spatula down.

"She was in there since three o'clock?" Bea asked.

"Yes."

"Did she bring snacks?"

"Gran."

"I'm asking if she planned. A woman who plans brings snacks."

I laughed, and it came out wrong, and then I was crying into a dish towel.

Bea turned off the burner and let me.

When I stopped, she slid a plate in front of me and sat down across the table.

"Whose name is on the deed?"

"Mine."

"Then what exactly can the boy take?"

"The video is what they have." I pushed the eggs around. "Every partner gets it at nine. They know what it'll do to me before the vote."

"Does it show your good side?"

"Gran."

"I'm trying to find out what we're scared of." She folded her hands. "Is it the video, or is it that people see you the way you are?"

I put my fork down.

I had spent ten years being the woman nobody could rattle.

"It's both," I said.

"Then fix the one you can." She tapped the table. "You're the lawyer. Who gets to pick the court?"

"Whoever files first."

"Then file."

I opened my laptop between the salt and the butter dish.

It took me forty minutes to draft a petition for my own divorce. I knew the form by heart, and I still had to stop twice because my hands would not hold still.

At twelve past one in the morning, the filing confirmed.

I stared at the screen. *Meredith Lang v. Clark Kovach.*

My name, first.

Bea read it over my shoulder and sniffed.

"Good. Now tell me about this Bree."

"She's been my best friend since college. She came to every holiday. She cried at our wedding."

"She asked me something at Christmas."

I turned around. "What?"

"Whether the house was in both your names. I thought she was making conversation." Bea took off her glasses. "I told her it was yours. I said it was the only thing your grandfather ever got right."

My stomach dropped.

"That was Christmas."

"Eat the eggs, Meredith."

I ate the eggs.

Bea put me in the spare room, under the quilt I had slept under at nine, when my father died.

I did not sleep.

At six I was in the shower, going over what I would say to Howard Finch.

At seven I was dressed in the charcoal suit that had won me three hung juries and one settlement with eight zeros.

At seven-forty, Bea handed me a thermos and a banana.

"You're going to be in front of people," she said. "Don't be nice."

"I'm never nice."

"Be less." She kissed my forehead. "Call me from the car."

At eight o'clock sharp, Bree's deadline passed.

My phone sat dark on the dashboard.

She had said she'd send it the moment I missed her time.

I waited at a red light on the bridge for a buzz, a ping, anything.

Nothing came.

It did not mean she had stopped. It meant she was waiting for nine.

At eight-thirty I walked into the lobby of Calder & Finch, past the security desk, to the elevators.

I texted Howard's assistant and asked for five minutes before the meeting.

The answer came back at once.

*Mr. Finch is reviewing the agenda with Ms. Rowan until eight fifty-five. Then the vote.*

Bree had the managing partner's ear for the last half hour.

Of course she did. She had set the clock herself.

I put the phone in my pocket.

A man in a gray raincoat stepped out from beside a pillar.

"Meredith Lang?"

"Yes."

He put an envelope in my hand.

"You've been served."

I broke the seal while the elevator doors opened and closed twice in front of me.

It was a petition for divorce.

*Kovach v. Lang.*

It asked for the townhouse, half of my earnings and half of my equity in the firm, if I made partner.

I read the date at the top.

It had been filed last Friday, six days ago.

Before I knew there was anything to file against.

Clark had not made a mistake in the closet last night. He had finished a plan he'd started a week before.

The last page carried the name of the lawyer who had signed it.

*Anthony Crane.*

I knew that name.

Every lawyer in the city knew that name.

He had a reputation for never losing a divorce, and for enjoying it.

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