“I’m sorry. You called during an important evening and it slipped my mind,” I somewhat lied.

He ignored my mention of the important evening and asked, “Now that I have you, when can we meet?”

“Perhaps first you can tell me why we’re meeting,” I suggested.

“We need to talk,” he said shortly.

“I could guess that. But about what?”

“This situation with the children isn’t working.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way but it’s working for me”

“I can imagine it is. But it isn’t for Martine.”

Like I gave a crap.

He had to know I felt that way so I didn’t tell him that.

“They’re of an age they can decide where they want to spend their time,” I informed him of something he knew, since he’d forced them to make that decision in a legal way. “But more, it would seem from their demeanor that they enjoy that freedom. I think, as their parents, having put them in a position where they have to divide their time between us, giving them the ability to do that as they wish is something we should allow.”

“The way things are, Amelia, Martine doesn’t know if they’re going to be home for dinner. If she’ll need to pack lunches for them. This affects grocery shopping—”

I interrupted him, “I face the same thing. However, I do find it’s easy to cope with making last minute adjustments. And they aren’t six and eight, Conrad. They can pack their own lunches, something they do at my house.”

“Martine likes to be certain they eat healthy,” he returned. “You would find it easy as they’re your children so you’d make those adjustments as a matter of course. We can’t forget that they aren’t Martine’s children, their home is her home, and the mingling of that has to be managed. This is not managed well.”

The mingling of that has to be managed?

This entire thing was making me uneasy.

“Conrad, I don’t need to remind you that your wife chose to pledge her troth to a man with children. Thus she had a readymade family, which I’m sorry if you disagree, but it’s my feeling she would need to adjust to fit within that family, make our children comfortable in the home she shares with them, not her home, all of your home, and do what’s best for them. If this means she has to endure the horror of cold cuts going bad because someone isn’t eating them, I’m sure she’ll eventually find it in her to survive.”

“There’s no need to get ugly,” he clipped.