It was the next evening and we were in the conference room at Gustafson, Howard and Pierce—Angie, Joker, Travis, and me. And Angie was explaining her strategy, which was essentially to obtain child support, revise custody so my very young son spent most of his time with his mother, as it should be (according to me, and now Angie), and lastly, to do her best to slap Aaron and his father on the wrist, hard, for what they’d been doing to me.

A strategy I agreed with wholeheartedly.

She kept talking.

“I’m actually surprised the judge you had didn’t recuse himself. He’s known to have a longstanding close relationship with Judge Neiland.”

That was something I knew. Heck, the man had come to my wedding!

I didn’t have a chance to share this before Angie continued, “Your last attorney is very good, but my feeling is that he didn’t ask a judge he knew should recuse himself to do so because it would set him up for the man’s displeasure. Judges have long memories. They’re supposed to be objective, but they’re also human. If they don’t recuse themselves, they don’t like to be asked. They also don’t like threats of appeal. I don’t have the same problem as your former counsel. They know that, and that should work in our favor.”

I wanted to jump across the table and kiss her.

Instead, I just smiled at her before I turned my head to Joker, who was sitting beside me.

It was then I wanted to kiss him.

This was because Joker was feeding Travis, who was sitting happily on his thigh.

It was Travis’s dinnertime. We couldn’t wait for Las Delicias and a high chair. My boy needed his food.

And Joker told me I needed to focus.

So when we settled in, I focused on Angie and Joker focused on my son.

Now, with surprising ease, he was shoving carrots in Travis’s mouth, the jar on the table in front of him, his attention on Travis, but I knew he was listening to Angie.

Taking him in, I thought he’d never been more handsome.

“I already have paralegals working on the motion we’ll be filing,” Angie continued and I looked back to her. “We’re hoping to do that tomorrow, latest the next day.”

“That’d be great.” I gave her my understatement.

“I’ll warn you that usually, as a first step, counsel would approach opposing counsel to try to negotiate things like this outside of court. However, I think we’re beyond that at this juncture.”

I nodded. “I agree.”