It was good until Aaron took me back to court and made it bad. Since Aaron had been born into the good ole boys network of the legal world of Denver (his father being a judge), he’d managed to win (or connive) partial custody and a lowering of child support.

Then he took me back again and won half custody with no child support.

We’d been officially divorced for six months, the decree coming through two months after I pushed out our son (alone, since Dad was driving from Nebraska, and Travis came out quickly). In that time, I’d been to court twice and I knew Aaron was looking for any little thing that he could use to prove I wasn’t fit to look after Travis or that I’d broken our arrangement so he could get me into (more) trouble.

I had long since run out of money for a lawyer. Dad sent a bunch but I stopped asking after the second trip to court. He worried about me. He was all I had left (except Travis), but all I could think about was that Travis and I were all he had left too and he’d been through enough. I couldn’t drag him through this with me.

I could, however, get a new attorney.

The one I’d had was expensive and we’d gone over things before I had to let him go. It was clear he was concerned about his ability to defend me considering the firepower at Aaron’s back.

But when I begged (and okay, cried), my attorney had told me I could pay installments.

However, they just racked up (I was still paying them off). I couldn’t afford more. I needed a new car. Eventually, I’d need more than a one-bedroom apartment and preferably one that was in a much better neighborhood. I needed to find time and money to go to beauty school so I could learn how to do hair. I was good at hair. I had a natural talent. I’d spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I was good at, what I could do, and that was the only thing.

And stylists at nice salons made huge tips.

I needed huge tips.

I pretty much needed everything.

So I’d tried to find a less expensive attorney.

Not many were willing to take me on (this, I feared, was Aaron and his father’s doing too), but I’d found one. And he’d be really less expensive, if, in his words with that oily smile on his face, I got down on my knees (repeatedly) while he battled Aaron for me.

I didn’t need him to explain what getting down on my knees meant. I also didn’t need to explain verbally why I got up from my chair in his office and walked out.