“Sign it, Mark,” his lawyer said quietly.

It took 3 hours to draft the final settlement. Mark signed every single page with a trembling hand. When he was done, he didn’t look like the confident man who had stood in my kitchen steam. He looked small.

He left the room without looking at me.

I walked out of the building into the bright afternoon sun. Eleanor was waiting in her car in the parking lot. She rolled down the window as I approached.

“Is it done?” she asked.

“It’s done,” I said. “I got the cabin. I got the house. He’s got nothing left but his car and the clothes in his suitcase.”

Eleanor nodded once, a firm, satisfied look on her face. “Good. Now, let’s go get some lunch. My treat.”

I never spoke to Sarah again. She called me once, crying, begging me to understand that she loved him. I blocked her number before she could finish her sentence. I heard from a mutual cousin that the cabin had to be sold to pay off the bank debt Mark owed, and she and Mark are now living in a cramped, one-bedroom apartment near Columbus. Mark is working two jobs just to cover the child support and the legal fees.

Sometimes, I sit on my front porch with a cup of coffee. I don’t use the blue mug anymore. I bought a set of bright yellow ones that don’t match anything else in the kitchen.

My neighbor, Clara, walked over yesterday with some fresh zucchini from her garden. She sat on the porch step and looked at me.

“You look different, Brenda,” she said. “Lighter.”

I took a sip of my coffee and looked out at the yard. The grass needed mowing, and the flower beds were a mess, but for the first time in 18 years, the house was completely mine.

“I am,” I said. “I really am.”