CHAPTER 4

Best divorce lawyer in the Republic of Dynalis

How do I make sure I get the best divorce lawyer in the state?

Experienced divorce lawyer in the Republic of Dynalis.

For three days straight, each and everything on my search engine involved the word divorce. I wanted out of my marriage, and I wanted it to be fast. Well, technically, I had already walked out, but I wanted a divorce to end it officially and forever. So I had spent most of my day in my childhood bedroom, sleeping my worries away, taking a couple of shots and glasses, googling a little more about divorce, taking more shots, and then sleeping more. When I googled how long it was going to take to land myself that precious divorce, I almost ripped my throat apart with a scream. Each and every page that pulled up told me it would take me about a year. No matter how I worded the search, the answer was the same. That was a freaking long time, and I did not want to wait that long.

When I realized this might really take a year, and I might as well start making calls at that very moment. I stretched out my hand to my nightstand, where I usually put my phone when I am in bed, but I only knocked down the wine glasses that were there. My phone was not there. I sighed, recalling that I had smashed it against the war after getting the forty-seventh call from Daniel’s fourteen different relatives. I had ignored them all, letting the phone ring until it went to voice mail, or I swiped the red button. The last one though, had me lose all my control. It was his mother’s first call to me in months. Over the years I was married to her son, it was clear she did not like me for her son, though she tried to hide it. And when the years moved and I had not given her the grandchild she so wished for, she no longer hid her contempt at that moment. The only reason she would call me, I was sure that she wanted to rub the fact that she would finally get her wish right in my face. So I ignored her call, using the last drop of patience and respect I had not to answer it and tell her exactly how I felt about her. And the next time my phone chimed, it was a message from her that had me throwing my phone across my room, made my neck sting, and had me craving another bottle of Corona or any other bottle of strong liquid my mother had in her cabinet. At the rate that I was going, by the end of the week, I would have cleared each and every bottle that she had tucked away in this house.

Just as I was about to roll out of my bed, my door swung open, and in came my very best friend Sally, already sounding too loud for my fogged brains.

.

“Nari, you gotta see what I got for you,” she buzzed in, holding a bottle of Chateau and two wine glasses. Warning: Sally was that friend mothers warn their daughters to stay away from.

I looked at her wondering what exactly she got for me because I know for sure, that bottle of Chateau is not the price. It is for our celebration. She places the glasses and the Chateau on the nightstand before jumping on my bed.

“Watchu get for me,”

“I got you,” she cooed, dragging the words out, “An appointment,” she took a break and I raised my eyebrow, “With, the best fucking lawyer you can ever get!”

“Really.” I beamed, getting up to sit up straight.

She nodded and then added, “You want a divorce, and you want it as soon as last year, and you want to walk away with your bank account loaded, this lawyer guy, is your best shoot,”

Divorce. Soon. Lawyer. And a good bank balance. All in the same line? That is exactly what I had been looking for all along.

“Tell me, you are not kidding,”

“Would I have brought this if I was kidding?” she takes the Chateau from the nightstand, “ You know I don’t play with my choice of poison,”

“Pour me that, while you tell me about this lawyer guy,” I said and she handed me one of the glasses and filled it to the brim, before filling the other one and then she was telling me about the guy and how dirty he fights. Fighting dirty? Who was I not to fight dirty? Daniel ha already messed up the game. It was only fair if I ended it up with a mess.

***

After meeting up with my lawyer and laying out every detail, it took him a whole fucking week to draw up the papers so that I could serve them to Daniel. But once I had the papers in my hands, I served them to my soon-to-be ex-husband through his personal email. In the days that followed, I tapped my feet impatiently, waiting for his response, but I got none. Those days turned into a week, and I was starting to consider. flying back to Salaam and serving him the papers in person. On day nine, instead of waking up to his reply in my inbox, I woke up to quite a number of messages from my friend Sally. They were all links to those online gossip magazines. The social circle I have been involved in for the past few years has made me familiar with them. I clicked on one of the links and it led me to an article that read

"Popular fashion designer in a nasty divorce," and there was a picture of me and Daniel at last year’s fashion show red carpet.

I quickly exited and clicked on another, and it had the same news, just different headlines, and I swore that I was surely going to chop his head off. He even entertained one of them and told them. "I married her when she was young, so I guess right now she has grown up and now has a different view on life, and I am not really the person she wants to spend her whole life with,"

That is what he fed the media when he asked why we were divorcing.

He could entertain stupid gossip magazines but would not respond to my email. I was so mad at him, and his stupid game was driving me up the wall.

I had contacted my lawyer, asking him if there was anything I could do about it, and he told me that according to the law, my husband had up to sixty days to respond before I could do anything. That made me scream out loud and tug on my hair.

"However, you can force him to respond to the petition sooner rather than later," my lawyer informed me, and that totally got my attention.

Dirty was exactly how I wanted to play.

"How so?" I asked, sounding way too eager, even for myself.

"Your husband cheating on you is actually considered a breach of contract, and you can actually sue him for that and the other party for intentionally interfering in your marital relationship."

"Okay," I said, not sure where he was heading off to.

"You actually have the right to ask the jury for them to pay damages based on loss of consortium, humiliation, mental anguish, the list goes on especially now that he had made the issue public and I surely can make the amount a hefty one,"

"Well, I am not interested in the money, I surely will have enough from the share I intend to get once the divorce is finalized. What I want from him is a divorce!"

"I am not saying you should sue them. What I am saying is you need to let him know that you know you can sue them and the damages will be hefty but you will choose not to, if only he does not contest the divorce, because he is likely going to and that he responds to your request as soon as possible,"

"You mean I should blackmail him?"

"You are just letting him know the power you have on this issue,"