By the beginning of the following week, I had established a routine.<\/p>\n
I checked the records in the morning.<\/p>\n
I followed up on the questions that needed attention.<\/p>\n
I kept copies of the responses.<\/p>\n
Then I put the folder away and tried to live the rest of my day.<\/p>\n
It was not an exciting routine.<\/p>\n
It was steady.<\/p>\n
I needed steady.<\/p>\n
The divorce had taken enough of my attention without allowing every financial question to consume whatever remained.<\/p>\n
On Monday, I reviewed the latest information and noticed that one of my questions had not been answered.<\/p>\n
I checked the date of the original request.<\/p>\n
Then I looked at the notes from the call I had made afterward.<\/p>\n
The matter was still outstanding.<\/p>\n
I wrote a brief follow-up asking what additional information was needed.<\/p>\n
I did not assume that the delay meant someone was hiding something.<\/p>\n
I also did not pretend the question had disappeared.<\/p>\n
I sent the request and recorded the date.<\/p>\n
Then I moved on to the next item.<\/p>\n
That afternoon, Landon called.<\/p>\n
His name appeared on my screen, and I felt my stomach tighten before I answered.<\/p>\n
For a moment, I considered letting it go to voicemail.<\/p>\n
I had no reason to avoid a conversation simply because I was uncomfortable.<\/p>\n
I answered.<\/p>\n
\u201cHi.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHi. I wanted to see how things were going with the remaining arrangements.\u201d<\/p>\n
His voice sounded familiar.<\/p>\n
That was the difficult part.<\/p>\n
I could still remember what it felt like to hear him call after a long day.<\/p>\n
I could still remember the relief of knowing he was on the other end of the phone.<\/p>\n
But the sound of his voice no longer told me whether a financial arrangement was complete or whether a document was accurate.<\/p>\n
I had to keep those things separate.<\/p>\n
\u201cI'm still reviewing the information,\u201d I said. \u201cThere are a few points I need clarified.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhich points?\u201d<\/p>\n
I opened my notes.<\/p>\n
I explained the questions as clearly as I could.<\/p>\n
There was a pause.<\/p>\n
Then Landon said he thought the arrangements were straightforward.<\/p>\n
I waited for him to explain the details.<\/p>\n
He repeated that everything had been handled as expected.<\/p>\n
I felt the old urge to accept that answer.<\/p>\n
It would have been easy.<\/p>\n
It would have allowed me to end the call and stop thinking about the matter.<\/p>\n
Instead, I asked him to identify the specific documents he was referring to so I could compare them with the records I had received.<\/p>\n
He sounded impatient for a moment.<\/p>\n
Then he said he would look for the information.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll right,\u201d I replied.<\/p>\n
The conversation ended without an argument.<\/p>\n
I stood beside the kitchen table holding the phone.<\/p>\n
My hands were not shaking, but I could feel the tension in my shoulders.<\/p>\n
I had not accused him.<\/p>\n
I had not challenged his character.<\/p>\n
I had asked for details.<\/p>\n
That was all.<\/p>\n
Still, the call left me unsettled.<\/p>\n
I called my father.<\/p>\n
He listened as I described what had happened.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid he answer the question?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot completely.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen you know what remains to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n
I sat down.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hate having to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels like I'm treating him as if I don't trust him at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
My father was quiet for a moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don't have to decide what you feel about Landon in order to check a document.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at the folder.<\/p>\n
The words made sense.<\/p>\n
I had been treating the financial review as though it required me to reach a final judgment about my former husband.<\/p>\n
Either he was trustworthy, or he was not.<\/p>\n
Either I had been right to trust him, or I had been foolish.<\/p>\n
But the records were not asking me to answer those questions.<\/p>\n
They were asking me to establish facts.<\/p>\n
I could do that without deciding what every memory meant.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I understand,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cGood. Keep the questions specific.\u201d<\/p>\n
After we hung up, I returned to the kitchen.<\/p>\n
I wrote a short note about the call and the information Landon had agreed to look for.<\/p>\n
I did not add my interpretation of his tone.<\/p>\n
I did not write that he had sounded guilty or that he had seemed innocent.<\/p>\n
I recorded what had happened.<\/p>\n
It was the fairest thing I could do.<\/p>\n
The next day, I received a response to one of my outstanding requests.<\/p>\n
It clarified part of the issue I had been checking.<\/p>\n
I read it carefully, then compared it with the other documents.<\/p>\n
The information was consistent with what I had already confirmed.<\/p>\n
I marked the question as answered.<\/p>\n
For a moment, I felt almost disappointed.<\/p>\n
I had become so accustomed to worrying that I had started expecting every new piece of information to reveal another problem.<\/p>\n
Instead, the records had answered a question.<\/p>\n
Nothing more.<\/p>\n
I sat back and let myself feel relieved.<\/p>\n
That was allowed, too.<\/p>\n
Later in the week, my father came by to review the progress.<\/p>\n
He noticed that several items on the list had been marked complete.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou've been getting through them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSlowly.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSlowly is fine if you're getting the answers.\u201d<\/p>\n
I showed him the latest documents.<\/p>\n
He checked them against the notes and agreed that the information supported the conclusions I had recorded.<\/p>\n
We did not celebrate.<\/p>\n
We simply moved to the next question.<\/p>\n
That was becoming our way of working.<\/p>\n
One issue at a time.<\/p>\n
One record at a time.<\/p>\n
No guesses.<\/p>\n
No dramatic conclusions.<\/p>\n
Before he left, my father asked whether I had been sleeping better.<\/p>\n
\u201cA little.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you still checking the phone every few minutes?\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked away.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot every few minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n
He smiled faintly.<\/p>\n
\u201cProgress.\u201d<\/p>\n
I rolled my eyes, but I was grateful he could still make me laugh.<\/p>\n
After he left, I put the documents away.<\/p>\n
The house felt less like a place where I was waiting for something bad to happen.<\/p>\n
I was beginning to see it as my home again.<\/p>\n
I made dinner.<\/p>\n
I watered the plants near the window.<\/p>\n
I spent the evening reading instead of reviewing financial records.<\/p>\n
The next morning, I checked the outstanding list.<\/p>\n
There were still questions to answer.<\/p>\n
There were also items I had completed.<\/p>\n
I could see the difference now.<\/p>\n
An unanswered question was not proof of wrongdoing.<\/p>\n
A confident explanation was not proof that everything was correct.<\/p>\n
Both needed to be tested against the information available.<\/p>\n
I closed the folder and went about my day.<\/p>\n
I was not finished.<\/p>\n
But I no longer felt that every unresolved detail had the power to undo whatever progress I had made.<\/p>\n
By the beginning of the following week, I had established a routine. I checked the records in the morning. I followed up on the questions that needed attention. I kept … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38164,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insightdrama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38175"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38195,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38175\/revisions\/38195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}