Chapter Ten

Charlotte was thinking. She had overheard the conversation between her daughter and husband. Now she sort-of wanted to take back her application for divorce. But to take that back, she would have to appreciate her husband on the surface at least, and she wasn't quite sure if she would after all. In a sense, she felt, she could be having to have a conscience about his feeling against her. But at the same time she felt that she had a reason to believe that she never could have been happy in this marriage without any love affair beside it.

But meanwhile her husband was thinking about seeing to it that the divorce was done with. He figured that he should take a stroll, during his lunch hour, to try to talk to the man who was their divorce counsellor. And so he did.

It was almost not possible for him to see him in such short notice. But the man was, though not easily, able to appreciate a conversation after his lunch with him. So, after hearing this from him, Richard took a hamburger, while waiting for the man to finish his lunch.

When twenty minutes remained of an ordinary lunch hour, Richard spotted him leaving rather exclusive restaurant of choice. He quickly walked up to him.

The man turned around and said:

ـِـ OK. I think I can take the few minutes we need, then.

They went to his office, and he handed over a few papers, some already signed by his wife. Richard read them for five minutes, and then signed them all. He smiled.

ـِـ Finally done, then. Finally I'm free form her – and she from me!

The man laughed and ordered him to pay the hundred dollars it cost for the extra meeting.

ـِـ I think I will soon enough.

He cleared his throat.

ـِـ How do I know that these papers really do work for us?

ـِـ Please trust me on that.

ـِـ Can you write another paper, that you have signed, which says that the papers we have signed actually mean that we have an already finished divorce.

The man giggled.

ـِـ OK, he said.

ـِـ Good, meanwhile I'll go out and take out that money!

Five minutes later he was back. He received a piece of paper that thoroughly stated that his divorce with his wife was now complete and paid the man the hundred bucks that he had received from a cash dispenser nearby.