SONYA POV
"This winter promises to be the warmest in the last ten years. Today it's plus eleven. It's raining outside, but we'll try to keep the pre-New Year mood with the help of our favorite song," the radio host exaggeratedly joyfully drawled the last vowel, and I almost missed the green traffic light, to the track 'New Year is Rushing to Us".
There were a couple of intersections and one big quest left to the District Court - how and where to park. On a weekday, it is almost impossible to do this.
Usually, I came here with Max, who had a pass to the closed area in the yard, but today was somehow not convenient.
It had been five days since I found out about his betrayal.
I found out not the way most women did, without preparation and the ability to accept this fact in advance. Over the years of working as a lawyer, I heard many stories, but almost all of them boiled down to one simple sequence.
At first, something changed - a subtle, seemingly insignificant detail. Then the first suspicions appeared. Evidence. Rumors. Facts. In the end, the betrayal was revealed in all its smooth guise, but the woman seemed to have already come to terms with this thought.
Max simply told me this news.
He presented it to me as a fact.
As if by the way.
Having replayed in my head everything that happened that night, I was once again convinced of the correctness of the decision I had made. Max tried to convince me, but his words merged into one meaningless stream of justifications, apologies, convictions, and remorse.
My stomach twisted into a cramp. I grimaced, trying to simultaneously remember what I had eaten for lunch and find at least one parking space with my eyes.
This was already the third time around, at least someone had to leave! One seat did become free, and I easily slipped into the gap between the Mercedes and Lexus.
It was as easy as breathing. I liked driving, and I left all the men who thought that "a woman behind the wheel is worse than a monkey with a grenade" without wheels in the courtroom. If my clients wanted to get out of a marriage by taking their favorite car, then they took it.
It's a pity that all the easy stuff ended for today.
Grabbing my purse from the passenger seat and throwing on my hood, I left the cozy and safe interior of the car. Ignoring the discomfort and spasms, I crossed the street and froze for a few seconds at house number one.
How many times have I walked through these doors for work? Almost every day. And this was my professional triumph. Women lawyers who are taken into account, who are respected, and not wanted as an opponent in the courtroom, are few and far between.
And today, it seems, is the very only time that I hoped to be able to avoid. But statistics are an inexorable thing - seven out of ten marriages break up.
"Hello, Sonya," Max crept up unnoticed and silently, I almost jumped on the spot. "Don't freeze," he stretched out his hands to me. it seemed he wanted to lift the collar of my coat, but I recoiled, as if two poisonous snakes were reaching out to me.
"Where did you see frost? Don't touch me, please."
It's time to stop touching each other everywhere and always. Everything that happens next is no longer about the two of us - the Max family. No, we will finally separate and become Maxim Titov and Sonya... I haven't decided which surname to keep. Because there were at least three options.
I turned my nose up and, ignoring my husband, moved towards the front door.
Inside, everything is as usual. After six in the evening, work in the courts, as well as in other offices, practically came to a standstill. At least the official part of it. But I called Nina myself and asked her to wait for me today to "get a consultation." It's a common, routine matter.
I wasn't proud of the deception, but I didn't want to discuss such things over the phone, even with her.
"Sonya, let's agree that I'll do the talking."
"Why is that?"
"I don't want you to go through this again. And anyway, it was possible to resolve everything without going to court, through government services."
"I don't have the habit of waiting for what I can get now, Max. I want to get a divorce as soon as possible," I snapped and pushed open the door to the Judge's office.
A woman with a strict short haircut, in a white blouse, a dark blue suit and a neat nude manicure was sitting at her desk and filling out paperwork.
She didn't wear glasses, believing that this accessory added age to her, but it wasn't her diopters that were aging her, but her habit of smoking. In five years of knowing each other, I still couldn't convince Nina to give up this disastrous business.
"Come in, Sonya," the judge didn't even raise her head, finishing what she was going to write. Her pen flew over the paper quickly and confidently. Her handwriting was truly medical - ornate and incomprehensible. "And... Max? What have you forgotten here? Do you have another joint project?"
Nina put her pen on the table and closed the blue folder, on which the word "Incoming" was embossed in gold.
"Something like that," Max said, sitting down in a chair opposite her desk. "We're getting a divorce."
It's strange, but after these words I remained on my feet.
But it's all true. We need to cut it off right away, to end our marriage faster. It was worth coming three days ago. Or four.
"Just like that, getting a divorce?"
"Yes."
"He stopped washing the dishes or bringing home his salary?"
The question is funny, but from the judge, it sounded very serious. Not cheating, but financial difficulties and what is called "everyday life" are much more often called the reason for the breakdown of even the strongest marriages.