“Kaylee, you can do whatever you want to do. I know the landlord here. I can fix it for you to stay. Or go and come back. Literally anything that works for you.”

“That’s just it,” she said. “I don’t know what will work. I can’t stay, I can’t go. I can’t ask you to come to Newport, we’re not ready for that kind of commitment. I can’t stay here much longer, I don’t have my things around me. I’m only sure of one thing and it’s huge. I want my mom to not have died!”

He pulled her close and held her for a moment. “I know,” he said. “It’s going to be all right. Just stick to your original plan. Get your book done and get through Christmas. Everything will look better on the other side.”

“It would break my mother’s heart to think I’m dreading Christmas. She always worked so hard to make it nice for me.”

“I think she would understand, and I understand.”

* * *

Landry didn’t have any deadlines or pressing work—he wasn’t showing anything and he sold some of his pots from his website, but he was ahead of schedule. Still, he kept mostly to his shop working and designing because he didn’t want to get in Kaylee’s space. After having a good cry, she’d snapped out of the blues for a while, but she was hard at work and a little more serious than usual.

She’d had a call from Bonnie Templeton and asked Landry if he wanted to go with her to see the house, so they drove across the mountain to the other side of Virgin River and he was the witness to an emotional reunion. Kaylee, whose feelings seemed to be on a trip wire, cried as she embraced her old friends. It took a little while to get it under control and then they walked through the house with Paul and Landry.

“You’re going to want to start a list of things that aren’t quite right or damaged or any imperfections you find,” Paul said. “As far as I can tell, there’s nothing to prevent you from staying here. Everything has been tested and passed inspection.”

“I can’t believe how beautiful it is,” Bonnie said. “Better than when we originally bought it!”

“I think over the past twenty years it got a little run-down,” Gerald said. “It was past due a little facelift, but I wasn’t sure we were going to keep it.”

“Were you thinking of selling it?” Kaylee asked.

“We’d always intended to keep it in the family,” Bonnie said. “We thought the boys would want it, but they’re undecided. They’re scattered all over the place—two in California, one in Oregon, one in Arizona. They vacillate on whether they’ll actually use it. Each family has other ideas, their own vacation spots, closer to where they live. We might keep it a couple more years, then sell it if it doesn’t see much use.”

“It’ll be easier to sell in its current condition than before,” Bonnie said. “I’d offer it to you for the rest of the year but I suspect you’re settled where you are.”

“I’m pretty comfortable,” she said with a slight flush. “Plus, there are important dogs there.”

“You? Dogs?” Bonnie said.

“She’s come a long way,” Landry said.

“Will you break away from the writing long enough to join us for dinner? I haven’t been to Jack’s since last summer.”

“Sure,” she said. “And he would love to see you.”

Landry felt his phone buzz, pulled it out of his pocket and read a text. It was from Brie, asking him to come by her office at his earliest convenience.

“Kaylee, can you go with the Templetons to Jack’s and I’ll meet you there? I just got a text from a friend asking me to drop by. I shouldn’t be long.”

“Sure,” she said. “Take your time.”

Landry left while Kaylee and the Templetons continued to look at and praise the renovations on the house, much to Paul’s satisfaction. Landry wasted no time texting Brie that he was on his way.

It had to have something to do with the divorce. It could all be over in no time. Surely Laura had signed off on it. They had agreed long ago, if one of them wanted to divorce, the other would not make it difficult. And they had no common property.

When he repeated that to Brie she said, “Oh, but you do. Any property you acquired during the marriage or jointly own is considered part of the divorce settlement.”

“As I said, we don’t have any jointly owned property.”

“Don’t you have a house? Land? Maybe a retirement account? Equipment that you use in your business?”

“It’s not jointly owned. I inherited the house and land from my father a few years ago and Laura has never been a part of my business.”

“It would very likely be considered part of the marriage assets, since you’re still married. Just as her assets would be considered part of the marriage assets.”

“Unless she’s keeping something from me, she doesn’t have anything. In fact, I told you that over the years she’s had to borrow money from me, not that I was fool enough to consider it a loan. I think Laura spends whatever she has when she gets paid and isn’t much of a saver or investor. She lives well when she’s working and not as well when she’s not.”

“Explain your situation to me again,” Brie said. “You haven’t lived together in ten years, you discussed divorce due to your separation eight years ago and agreed on the terms—”

“There were no terms,” he said a little hotly. “I didn’t have anything but my art supplies, she didn’t have anything. We agreed we weren’t going to live together. We were friendly and she visited sometimes.”

“Define sometimes,” Brie asked.

“I saw her three or four times a year. I haven’t sent her monthly money or slept with her in eight years. I didn’t support her. I gave her loans because she was short. I knew they weren’t loans and I did it anyway.”

“I received a very polite email from her lawyer that said she’d be happy with half of your house and land and support payments.”

“She never lived in that house! I’ll call her and get to the bottom of this!”

“As your attorney, I advise you not to make contact with her. She has an attorney, you have an attorney. I’ll recommend mediation supervised by family court and you can lay it all out.”

“And just because I didn’t divorce her a long time ago, I’m going to lose my home and half my possessions?”

“I do think under the circumstances we’ll get out better than that, but there’s no question that now that lawyers are involved, it’ll be more expensive. Listen, the law is the law and believe it or not it’s written that way to protect the innocent. No-fault divorce means it doesn’t matter who does what to who and community property is simply half or whatever can be negotiated. Right now, feeling like you’re being robbed, you don’t have much empathy, but this is meant to protect men or women from falling at the mercy of powerful spouses who want to turn their backs on their responsibilities. That is not your situation. So—we’ll try mediation and fight it. Your marriage was over a long time ago.”

“I’m still going to call her and ask her why she’s doing this.”

“If I were you I’d probably ignore my lawyer’s advice and do that, too. Try very hard not to give her more ammo. Okay?”

Landry was so angry that he didn’t wait long. He called Laura on his way to Jack’s. Of course she didn’t answer. Now that he thought about it, she rarely did. She almost always returned the call. On the other hand, if he saw that it was her and he wasn’t in the middle of something important, he would answer. But clearly Laura’s life was more important than his. To the voice mail he said, “I’ve just heard from my lawyer. My lawyer heard from your lawyer. So you’re going to make this difficult and you’re asking for half my father’s property? Property that you visited maybe six times in as many years? Property that you never shared with me, but now you want it? What the hell is going on, Laura? We agreed years ago that we’d chosen to live separately and if the time for divorce came, there would be no altercation! This is altercation, my wife. I’ve given you patience, kindness, money, and now that I just want to end it, you’re going to drag every dime you can get out of my kicking, screaming body? If you’d come to me and told me you need a little help... Haven’t I always been willing to help you? But this—after you left me—”

By the time he got to Jack’s, he could barely conceal his cranky mood, though he tried. They had dinner and he hoped he’d come off as a little quiet but not much worse. Fortunately Bonnie and Gerald were talkative enough to cover his silence.

But on the way home, Kaylee said, “I get the feeling that something is wrong.”

“It’s nothing much,” he said. “I’ll fill you in later. Right now I’m stewing.”

“I hope it’s nothing I’ve done.”

“Not at all,” he said, reaching for her hand. “You’re perfect.”

When he and Kaylee went to bed, he turned off the ringer on his phone. He slept poorly, of course. He was consumed by the unfairness of it all. In the morning, he didn’t look at his phone until they’d had breakfast and gone to their separate work spaces. Then he looked and saw there were six missed calls from Laura, the last one coming in at 1:00 a.m.

He was not fooled. He couldn’t remember when she’d ever called him so late. She wanted to know if he was alone.

When he finally called her in the late morning, she actually answered.

“I take it you got my message,” he said. “Do you want to explain what it is you’re doing and why?”

“I just want a chance,” she said softly. “I want you back. Obviously you’re doing this because you have someone else now. And you know I know who that someone is.”