Chapter 5 - The StudioOur divorce took nearly nine months. It was exhausting — emails, financial disclosures, property appraisals, mediation, legal bills, arguments about schedules. We sold the house because neither of us could afford to buy the other out. The equity got divided according to the settlement. So did our savings.
At first I worried about money. I wasn't traditionally employed — I was an artist, and for years people had treated that like a hobby simply because I worked from home. It wasn't. I sold original paintings, took commissions, licensed designs, and quietly saved and invested part of everything I earned. I wasn't wealthy. But I wasn't helpless either.
Owen lived primarily with me. Nathan got regular parenting time, including overnights once Owen felt comfortable with it. I never tried to keep them apart. Owen loved his father. He was also furious with him. Both things were true at once, and I learned to hold space for both.
Camille and I will never be friends. I doubt we'll ever like each other. But she became part of Owen's life because his father chose to build a future with her, and because Owen now had a half-sibling. I refused to make my son carry my resentment on his own shoulders.
A few months after the divorce was final, Owen and I moved into a three-bedroom apartment. His room was the first one we finished. The second became mine. The third became something I'd wanted for years — a real art studio. Not a corner of a dining room, not canvases stashed behind the couch. Shelves for paint. A real worktable. Good light. A door that actually closed.
The first night after I finished setting it up, I stood in the middle of that empty room and cried. Not because I missed Nathan. I cried because I finally understood how much of myself I'd folded quietly into that marriage without ever noticing I was doing it.
He hadn't just cheated on me. He'd built an entire new future before he ever found the courage to end the one he already had — and somehow expected me to step aside for it quietly.
I don't hate him anymore. Most days, I don't feel strongly enough about him to bother.
Owen is doing better. He still asks questions — sometimes hard ones, sometimes ones I don't know how to answer. I tell him what I can. Nathan and I mostly talk about school, doctor's appointments, pickup times. Boring things.
I've learned to appreciate boring.
I don't know whether Nathan and Camille will last, and I genuinely don't care. A relationship that started with lies is theirs to manage. My job was rebuilding the life that disappeared somewhere over thirty thousand feet.
And I did. Not perfectly. But enough.
The drawing Owen made for his father is still sitting in my desk drawer. He never gave it to him. Once I asked if he wanted to throw it out.
He shook his head. "Maybe I'll give it to him someday."
So I kept it.
I think that's about where both of us are now. We're not pretending nothing happened. We're not pretending it didn't hurt.
We're just leaving a little room for someday — whatever someday ends up meaning.
May you like
But there's one thing I know for certain.
Owen and I are going to be okay.
