The divorce was final the following May.
I didn’t fight a single thing.
Margaret kept the house in Greenwich. She moved back into it with the twins after I found a small rental in Old Greenwich, ten minutes away. Close enough to be there. Far enough to give her space.
I set up trusts for Benjamin and Abigail. And a separate account for Margaret. Not as an apology. As what she was owed. Fifteen years of building that company beside me.
Rebecca Foster called me after I signed the papers.
“Mr. Mercer,” she said. “I’ve been doing this for twenty-two years. Most men in your position fight over everything. You didn’t fight over anything.”
“There was nothing worth fighting her for,” I said. “Except the kids. And she never tried to keep them from me.”
“No,” Rebecca said. “She didn’t. She told me from the very first day she wanted them to have their father.”
She paused.
“She also told me she wanted to see if you’d actually show up. She said she’d know in a year.”
On the twins’ first birthday, Margaret threw a small party in the backyard of the house in Greenwich.
Grandparents. Ellen and her husband. A few friends from Margaret’s new job. She’d gone back to landscape architecture. Part time, at a firm in New Canaan.
She invited me.
It was the first invitation that came from her. Not through Rebecca.
I brought two presents. Wooden stacking toys from a little shop in Mystic. Forty dollars each.
No velvet boxes.
When it was time for cake, Margaret set two tiny smash cakes in front of the high chairs. Blue frosting for Benjamin. Pink for Abigail.
Benjamin stared at his like it was a math problem.
Abigail put both fists right into hers and started laughing.
Everybody cheered.
And Margaret looked across that backyard at me. Standing next to the fence with frosting on my shirt from helping Abby.
“Nate,” she said. “Would you light the candles?”
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