Done

Court: it's not just for kicks.

It was our day there last week. A week ago Wednesday, David and I got up, saw Madeleine off to school, then went to court to end our marriage. It was weird.

It's an awful place, the Will County courthouse. Dingy and dull, crowded and loud. It's grey and that terrible beigey-brown color that you see on old filing cabinets in old offices, holding moldy papers. The security guards make it obvious that you are under suspicion and I think they all hate their jobs. The lady behind me - she looked friendly enough, and I was desperate to share a kind word with someone who didn't look altogether miserable; I turned to face her and made some kind of small talk.

"My baby daddy," she said. "I'm here all the time."

I looked around and saw David among the throngs. I stuck to him like glue. We rode up the scary elevator, jammed against probable criminals. We found two seats together outside the courtroom and sat, watching people and chatting, until our lawyers arrived.

That morning at home after Maddie left for school, I told David that I felt like we should say something to each other. He said that he was sorry that things had turned out this way. Always the diplomat, David is. I'm sorry, too.

Papers signed and ready to go, we paired off, each lawyer and his counterpart, and entered Room 300. Representation sat in front and off to the side; David and I in the gallery among halves of couples; aside from us, no one else seemed to be there together. We discussed things like you do at the dinner table or in the family room. Then, finding ourselves called up before the judge, we went.

I wasn't sure what to do with my purse. I shifted my weight from one leg to the other. David kept saying "Yes, yes, yes." Then me: "Yes, yes, yes." Ad nauseam. Yes, this is true, yes that is true. Once I threw in a "yep," just to stir things up, but it felt too informal for the occasion, so I cleared my throat and changed it to "Yes." I bet there were close to 30 in all.

The judge, a nice lady, was concerned about our daughter, then put at ease when she understood that we took her post-divorce well-being very seriously. Obviously this lady doesn't know a lick about Madeleine, how beyond her years she is, how she has heartily supported her dad's and my decision to move on in our lives, apart. I told the judge that Maddie is excited about having two houses, two bedrooms, and she laughed, knowingly, it seemed.

The judge signed her name and it seemed as though she were writing a paragraph. We were done, David and I. I had been holding back tears and my lawyer turned to me and said, "I told you it was going to be emotional." He was kind, always looking out for me. I could be this man's Facebook friend. Well, after the bill is paid.

The mad rush to get into morning court ended, the crowds had thinned by the time David and I made our way back downstairs. The whole thing had taken exactly one hour of our day. The sun was out, shining through the only redeeming quality of that building - the huge windows. We hugged and parted - him to work, me to spend the day with a friend - lunch and a movie, my Divorce Day treat. One hour - start to finish.

And now...on to whatever's next.