"You're right," I said. She blinked. "What?" "You're absolutely right. I appreciate you saying that clearly."
I got up, went upstairs, and sat on the edge of the bed for about 20 minutes. I wasn't angry exactly. I was something else. The feeling you get when a number you've been trying to make work finally resolves itself cleanly. When the answer is obviously what it is and you stop trying to make it be something different.
Then I picked up my phone and called Ford Gallagher. He answered on the second ring. "Ford," I said, "is the Singapore position still available?" A pause. "Eli?"
"I know I passed, but circumstances changed. If it's still open, I want to be considered." Another pause, longer this time. "I'll make some calls," he said. "Give me 48 hours."
I didn't tell Petra that night. I thought about it. Thought about sitting her down and saying, "Here's what I just did. Here's why. Here's what that means."
But I realized I didn't want to have a negotiation about it. I'd been negotiating for the better part of a year, negotiating for her attention, negotiating for our weekends, negotiating for the acknowledgement that my feelings were worth addressing. I was done negotiating.
Ford called back the following Tuesday. The position was still available. They'd been considering internal candidates, but hadn't made a final decision. My credentials were strong enough that they wanted to proceed. He needed an answer within a week.
I said yes. The process moved quickly after that. Background check, contract review, visa paperwork.
I called my older brother, Theo, who lived in Portland, and told him what was happening. He was quiet for a moment. "How long have you been thinking about this?" he asked. "About a year," I said. "I just didn't admit it to myself."
"You good?" "I'm good," I said. "I think I've been not good for a while and this is me fixing it." He said he'd help me figure out the logistics whenever I needed it. That was Theo.
He didn't editorialize, didn't tell me what he thought I should feel, just asked if I needed help and meant it.
I hired a divorce attorney named Carol Ashworth, whose office was on Second Avenue downtown. She'd been recommended to me by someone at the firm who'd gone through a split two years earlier. She was direct and competent, and she didn't waste my time on sympathy. She wasn't hired to give sympathy. "Washington is a community property state," she said during our first meeting.
"Given the length of the marriage and the assets involved, here's what to expect." She walked me through it. I listened carefully and took notes. "Timeline?" I asked.
"It can move relatively quickly if both parties cooperate. Depends on how your wife responds." "She'll be surprised," I said. "I don't know how she'll respond to surprise." Carol Ashworth nodded like she'd heard that a thousand times.
I told Petra on a Thursday evening. We were in the kitchen, both of us, between the end of the workday and dinner, and I said, "Sit down. I need to tell you something." She sat down. She must have read something in my face because she went immediately still.
"I called Ford Gallagher last Sunday night," I said. "I took the Singapore position. I accepted the offer." She stared at me. "I've also spoken with an attorney," I said.
"You'll be served with papers this week. I didn't want that to be the first you heard of any of it." "Eli." Her voice was barely audible.
"You told me if I couldn't handle your arrangement with Damon, maybe we weren't right for each other. I've thought about that a lot this week. I think you were right." "I didn't mean it like that." "I understand, but I've been thinking about it and I think it was more honest than you intended it to be."
"You're leaving the country?" she said. "You're just... you're leaving." "I start in 6 weeks." She stood up, sat back down. Her hands were flat on the table the way people put their hands when they're trying to stabilize something.
"Eli, I love you." I looked at her. "I know you do. I don't think love has been our problem." "Then what is the problem?"
"We want different things," I said. "You told me that yourself last Sunday morning." "I was frustrated." "People say true things when they're frustrated. That's kind of the point of frustration."
She started crying. And I want to be honest about what I felt in that moment because it would be easy to say I felt nothing or I felt vindicated or I felt like I'd won something. None of those were true. What I felt was sad. Deeply, specifically sad.
The kind of sad that comes from watching something that could have been good reveal itself as something that wasn't going to survive. I didn't comfort her. I didn't know how to do that honestly without making promises I wasn't going to keep. I made dinner because we both needed to eat. We sat at the table and barely spoke.
Afterward, I went upstairs to the bedroom and she stayed on the couch. I don't know how late she sat there.
The weeks that followed were the logistical deconstruction of six years, the townhouse in Eastlake. We'd need to decide what to do with it. We'd bought it together, and the equity belonged to both of us. Petra could buy out my share, or we could sell. She said she'd think about it.
I started sorting through my things with the calm, deliberate focus that had always served me well at work. Books I was taking, books I was leaving, art that was hers, art that was mine, art we'd bought together and had to negotiate.