My attorney, Daniel Reyes, had repeated those words so many times that morning I could still hear them in my head as I stood outside the Fulton County Courthouse.
He had said them before we entered the building.
Again in the elevator.
And one final time just outside the courtroom.
“Whatever they say, whatever they do, keep your expression neutral. Keep looking forward. Let me handle the rest.”
I had nodded every time.
But I didn’t fully understand why until I stood beneath the blazing Atlanta sun, watching Patricia Monroe clap her hands together as if she had just witnessed the ending of a wonderful performance.
Except the performance she was celebrating was the collapse of my marriage.
Eight years.
That was how long I had been married to Grant Monroe.
Eight years reduced to a judge’s signature inside a courtroom that smelled of old paper and industrial cleaner.
The judge had signed our divorce decree with the exhausted efficiency of someone who handled dozens of broken marriages every week.
To him, it was another file.
To me, it was the end of nearly a decade of my life.
“Well,” Patricia announced loudly from the courthouse steps, “at least the Monroe house is safe now.”
The family laughed.
About a dozen of them had gathered there.
Grant’s sister, Vivian, wore an expensive linen dress and enormous sunglasses.
His uncle Douglas, who had managed to forget my name repeatedly during our entire marriage, stood beside several cousins and their spouses.
They were dressed more like guests at a celebration than witnesses to a divorce.
And that was exactly why they had come.
They wanted to watch me lose.
They wanted to remember the day the outsider had finally been removed from the Monroe family.
Later, they would tell the story at Thanksgiving.
At Christmas.
At every gathering where my name came up.
Allison.
The woman Grant had foolishly married.
The woman the family had finally gotten rid of.
I stood several feet away holding my purse, a manila folder, and the freshly stamped court papers.
I kept my face still.
Eyes forward.
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