It was cold in the office. A light breeze ran through the air and caused the billowing skirt of Darcy's maxi dress to tickle her ankles. Darcy knew that she should have worn something more professional than the maxi dress, but she had yet to shed the last few pounds of pregnancy weight that had been clinging to her sides for the past three years and of all her dresses, this was the only one that still fit. She loved her son, Steven, more than anything, but Darcy often felt that she could do without the stretch marks and jiggle that he had left her with.
Across the table, her soon to be ex husband, Clint was wearing a freshly pressed black suit and a thin blue tie that Darcy had bought him almost five years ago. Clint looked well put together, if not a bit worn down. It had been a few weeks since Darcy had seen her husband and she immediately noticed the slight scruff forming on his cheeks. Somewhere in the back of Darcy's mind she wondered if he had forgotten to shave that morning because she wasn't there to remind him.
Clint sat next to his lawyer, a stiff man, who looked to be just over fifty, with hair that was quickly turning from silver to white. Darcy recognized him as Michael Stanza, an old friend of Clint's father. She had met him only once before at one of Clint's mother's annual Christmas parties, but even though that must have been two years ago, Michael still looked the same.
Darcy's family didn't have a lawyer ready. Darcy was Darcy's family. Her father had abandoned her mother after their night together and her mother had died when Darcy was only eleven. Darcy had been raised by her maternal grandmother, a quiet woman who spoke very little English, having immigrated from Poland and never bothering to learn the language that her own daughter grew to speak. The woman sitting next to Darcy that day was the cheapest divorce lawyer that Darcy could find, and although Darcy wasn't fond of Meryl's harsh demeanor, she was comforted when she promised to win the only thing Darcy really cared about, Steven.
"Okay," said a heavy set man sitting at the end of the table, "let's get started." Both Michael and Meryl nodded and flipped to the first page in the large stack of documents in front of them. Darcy stared at Clint, who kept his green-eyed gaze fixed on the clock over her head. As the lawyers began their talk of negotiations, Darcy began to wonder how they had ended up here.
**
Darcy and Clint's was not a love story. If any one thing is to be known about these two people is this. Their story was never destined to have a happy ending, it wasn't one that would be the inspiration of a romantic comedy, and it certainly wasn't a story that would ever truly be told to Steven, as many details painted one or both of them in a less than favorable light. No, their love wasn't clean cut destiny, it was messy and hard, and it had started on November 8th, when a twenty year old Darcy met a twenty four year old Clint.
It had rained continuously that entire day, enough rain to keep most of the Michigan college students in their dorms, but there was something about the rain that Darcy had always found appealing. She liked the chaotic control of it all. The way that the rain drops seemed to fall and fall and then suddenly stop with little evidence left of their presence at all. This was the way that Darcy often saw her life. It had been nine years since she had lost her mother and since then she had lost almost all of her memories of her. She had no memories of her father, no proof that he had ever existed at all and Darcy had lived her life under the assumption that one day she too would be gone, with nothing to remember her by.
On that November night Darcy was heading out to dinner with Britt, a smoldering brunette who she had met in her biology class. Britt was a senior and she had taken it upon herself to take a sophomore Darcy under her wing. Britt was always saying things to Darcy like You must absolutely do this... or My dear you must never do that...Britt was an actress and she constantly spoke as if she were on stage, elongating her syllables and gesturing around her as if the entire world were her own possession.
