My bank account needs CPR because not only have I always worked for pennies so more money could be funneled back into building the practice (worst decision ever), I also spent what meager savings I have on a cheap sublet in Hell’s Kitchen (yes, irony’s a bitch) as I tried to hunt for a new job. Of course, when your ex is your only job reference, well, like I said, worst decision ever…

I finally gave up the ghost and slunk back to Jersey last week. And to my parents.

Now I’m living in my childhood bedroom—because the upscale condo on the Upper East Side where I spent the entirety of my doomed marriage is listed as belonging to my ex’s law firm and apparently not a marital asset. Oh wait, no, that was my worst decision ever.

My shoulders sink as I stare at my reflection and wonder for the hundredth time how I let this happen. Aunt Maggie would have never ended up in this position.

If she’d found any one of her three husbands going down on his paralegal, she would have pulled some kind of dramatic, awe-inspiring act of vengeance that would probably have involved the bottle of hot honey she always seemed to have in her giant purse and fire ants she would have willed into existence simply from the power of her fury.

Me? I shut the door quietly and waited until I got home to cry. Turns out more than three decades of lectures on the proper way for a Martin woman to behave was too much to overcome.

It doesn’t matter. At this point in my life, I am who I am. Of course, I’m not sure exactly who that person is anymore.

“Mallory.” Dad’s voice comes through the closed bathroom door, as low and loud as a foghorn and just as abrupt. “Stop being self-indulgent and get out here. Thad has a tee time.”

Golf. One of the three sacred activities of Edward Christopher Martin, Esquire—really, that’s the way he’s introduced himself to others for my entire life, full name and “Esquire.” The only thing I could do that would lower myself further in his estimation after I told him about the upcoming divorce was to make a fellow attorney late for his golf game.

Exhaling a shaky breath, I turn on the gold-plated faucet as if I’m just a hand wash away from being ready to come out. Then I take another thirty seconds to prep for saying goodbye to Aunt Maggie, because that’s what this really is.

After the reading of the will, everything will be put back in its place, and any discussion of my great-aunt will be shushed with the admonishment not to make things uncomfortable for others. That isn’t just the Martin golden rule; it’s the one rule that can’t be broken—at least not by me.