Chapter 3 - Stopping the Bleeding
The morning after I walked out of my house, I dropped my children off at school and drove straight to my attorney’s office. I didn't cry in the waiting room. I sat in the leather chair, drank a cup of black coffee, and formally filed for divorce.
When I left the lawyer's office, I pulled over in my car and called my accountant. It was time to systematically dismantle the financial life support I had been providing to the people who despised me.
“Cancel it all,” I instructed my accountant, staring blankly at the steering wheel.
Within an hour, the quiet, monthly automatic transfers supporting Diane’s struggling restaurant were permanently stopped. The corporate business credit card that Kimberly used to fund her catering expenses—which was tied directly to my personal line of credit—was immediately canceled. The massive commercial lease for their restaurant property, which I had personally guaranteed using my design firm's assets years ago, was flagged for non-renewal.
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And the beautiful, sprawling house where they had sat at my table and treated me like an obedient servant? I had purchased it entirely with my own trust fund a year before Eric and I were legally married. Only my name was on the deed. It was my house, and my lawyer was already drafting the paperwork to ensure Eric had thirty days to vacate.
I wasn't doing it out of malice. I was simply severing the diseased limbs of a family tree that was killing me. I had spent twelve years acting as the invisible spine of the Parker family. I was about to show them exactly what happened when you snap the spine in half.
