The following afternoon, Landon called.<\/p>\n
I was at the kitchen table, reviewing the latest documents, when his name appeared on my phone.<\/p>\n
I took a breath before answering.<\/p>\n
\u201cHello.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHi. Do you have a minute?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
He asked about the remaining arrangements.<\/p>\n
His tone was calm, almost casual.<\/p>\n
For a moment, I felt as though we were back in the old routine.<\/p>\n
He would ask a question.<\/p>\n
I would explain what I had done.<\/p>\n
He would tell me what remained.<\/p>\n
We would finish the conversation and move on.<\/p>\n
That routine had once made me feel secure.<\/p>\n
Now I knew I needed to pay attention to the actual details rather than the comfort of familiarity.<\/p>\n
\u201cI've completed some of the checks,\u201d I told him. \u201cThere are still a few points I'm waiting to clarify.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhich ones?\u201d<\/p>\n
I explained the outstanding items.<\/p>\n
He said he believed the arrangements were straightforward.<\/p>\n
I waited.<\/p>\n
I had learned that repeating a conclusion was not the same as answering a question.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan you tell me which documents support that?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
There was a pause.<\/p>\n
\u201cI'll have to look.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll right.\u201d<\/p>\n
I kept my voice even.<\/p>\n
I did not tell him that he should already know.<\/p>\n
I did not suggest that he was avoiding the question.<\/p>\n
I simply waited for the information.<\/p>\n
He asked whether I thought there was a problem.<\/p>\n
I looked at the folder beside me.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don't know yet. That's why I'm checking.\u201d<\/p>\n
He sighed.<\/p>\n
I felt the old urge to reassure him.<\/p>\n
I wanted to tell him I was not accusing him of anything.<\/p>\n
I wanted to explain that my father had advised me to be careful.<\/p>\n
I wanted to make sure Landon understood that I was not trying to turn the divorce into a fight.<\/p>\n
Then I realized that I had already answered his question.<\/p>\n
I did not know whether there was a problem.<\/p>\n
I was checking.<\/p>\n
I did not need to defend that decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cI'll send you the information when I have it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you.\u201d<\/p>\n
We ended the call.<\/p>\n
I sat quietly for a moment.<\/p>\n
The conversation had not been pleasant, exactly.<\/p>\n
It had not been terrible, either.<\/p>\n
It had been an ordinary discussion about unfinished business.<\/p>\n
I had asked for information.<\/p>\n
Landon had said he would look for it.<\/p>\n
Nothing more needed to be decided that afternoon.<\/p>\n
I wrote a note about the call and returned to the records.<\/p>\n
For the first time, I noticed that I had not spent the entire conversation trying to manage his feelings.<\/p>\n
I had listened.<\/p>\n
I had answered his questions.<\/p>\n
I had asked mine.<\/p>\n
I had not turned a request for documentation into an argument about our marriage.<\/p>\n
That felt like progress.<\/p>\n
My father called later that evening.<\/p>\n
He asked how I was doing.<\/p>\n
I told him about the conversation.<\/p>\n
He listened, then asked whether I had made any conclusions based on Landon's reaction.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGood.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI did wonder whether he was annoyed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe may have been.\u201d<\/p>\n
I frowned.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat doesn't help.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI'm not trying to make you feel better by guessing what he thinks.\u201d<\/p>\n
I sighed.<\/p>\n
My father continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can notice that he sounded annoyed without deciding what it means. The important thing is whether you get the information you need.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked at the notes beside my laptop.<\/p>\n
I had been trying to learn that lesson for days.<\/p>\n
Apparently, I still needed to hear it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI'm getting better at this,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was no grand speech.<\/p>\n
He said it as though he were stating something obvious.<\/p>\n
That made me believe him.<\/p>\n
After we hung up, I made dinner.<\/p>\n
I did not check my phone while I ate.<\/p>\n
I did not open the folder again that night.<\/p>\n
Instead, I watched television and went to bed at a reasonable hour.<\/p>\n
The next morning, I returned to the outstanding questions.<\/p>\n
I requested the clarification I needed from the appropriate source and recorded the date.<\/p>\n
Then I reviewed the other documents.<\/p>\n
I had begun to trust my own process.<\/p>\n
That was different from trusting every answer.<\/p>\n
I trusted myself to ask the question.<\/p>\n
I trusted myself to keep the records.<\/p>\n
I trusted myself to admit when I did not understand something.<\/p>\n
And I trusted myself to wait for the facts before deciding what they meant.<\/p>\n
A few hours later, I found a message from Landon.<\/p>\n
He said he was looking for the information we had discussed.<\/p>\n
I replied that I appreciated the update.<\/p>\n
I did not ask him to hurry.<\/p>\n
I did not promise to finish anything before I had the necessary documents.<\/p>\n
Then I went back to work.<\/p>\n
There was a time when I would have considered that response cold.<\/p>\n
Now I saw it as ordinary.<\/p>\n
I could be polite without pretending everything was settled.<\/p>\n
I could be fair without doing all the emotional work for both of us.<\/p>\n
And I could care about the history we shared without allowing that history to replace evidence.<\/p>\n
The distinction was becoming clearer.<\/p>\n
That evening, I took the folder from the drawer and checked the list.<\/p>\n
The old black card remained in its envelope.<\/p>\n
I put it beside the latest documents and reviewed the remaining items.<\/p>\n
Nothing in the records justified a dramatic conclusion.<\/p>\n
Some questions were still open.<\/p>\n
Others had been answered.<\/p>\n
I was learning to accept both facts without forcing them into a single story.<\/p>\n
Before bed, I closed the drawer.<\/p>\n
I did not know when Landon would provide the remaining information.<\/p>\n
I did not know whether the final checks would reveal anything else that required attention.<\/p>\n
But I knew I would not sign off on an arrangement simply to avoid an uncomfortable conversation.<\/p>\n
I had done enough of that already.<\/p>\n
The following afternoon, Landon called. I was at the kitchen table, reviewing the latest documents, when his name appeared on my phone. I took a breath before answering. \u201cHello.\u201d \u201cHi. … <\/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-38178","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\/38178","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=38178"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38198,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38178\/revisions\/38198"}],"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=38178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}