Chapter 8: The Last Conversation
Brandon called on a Thursday afternoon, eleven days after his attorneys withdrew.
I was in my office finishing notes when my phone lit up with his name.
Douglas had told me to save any contact.
I answered and put it on speaker so the recording app could run.
"Gwen." His voice was different.
Not the hallway voice.
Not the performance.
Something flatter underneath it.
"Brandon."
"I want to end this."
"You filed a countersuit," I said.
"You had a retired doctor sign a false declaration.
You put a car outside my house."
A pause.
"I don't know what you're talking about.
With the car."
"Then we have nothing to talk about."
"Gwen — " His voice shifted.
"I made mistakes.
I know that.
But what Douglas is pushing for will destroy things that don't need to be destroyed.
The firm.
People who work there who had nothing to do with any of this."
"You should have thought about them before you approached Parrish."
Silence.
"How much do you want?" he said.
"To make this go away."
I looked at the recording app.
The timer was running.
"This isn't about money, Brandon."
"Everything is about money eventually."
"Not for me," I said.
"That's something you never understood."
Another silence.
Longer this time.
"Lauren isn't going to hold," he said.
His voice had changed again — quieter, and with something underneath it that might have been a threat or might have been desperation.
With Brandon it was sometimes hard to tell.
"She's not as strong as she thinks she is.
Whatever she told you, whatever she gave you — she'll reconsider."
"Lauren made her decision," I said.
"You should make yours."
"I'm trying to make a deal, Gwen."
"I know.
I'm not interested in a deal."
A beat.
"Then what do you want?"
I thought about the seven years of appointments.
The drives home in silence.
The way I had sat in waiting rooms and told myself that grief was something a marriage could survive if both people were willing.
I thought about the email between Brandon and Parrish.
Sent two weeks before my diagnosis appointment.
The one where Brandon had written, simply: *How long before we can move?
I need a timeline.*
"I want the settlement the court determines I'm owed," I said.
"I want the false declaration on record as false.
And I want you to understand that what you did in that hallway — what you said, in front of those people — was the last time."
"The last time for what?"
"The last time you use my life as a prop."
He didn't answer immediately.
When he spoke again, the flatness was back.
"You think you've won something," he said.
"I think the process is working the way it's supposed to," I said.
"That's enough for me."
The line went quiet for a moment.
Then: "I'm going to find new counsel."
"That's your right," I said.
"This isn't finished."
"No," I agreed.
"It isn't.
But it will be."
He ended the call.
I stopped the recording and sent the file to Douglas within the minute.
His reply came back fast: *Perfect.
Don't worry about new counsel.
I'll explain why tomorrow.*
I set the phone down and looked at my office.
The two chairs across from my desk.
The window showing the parking structure.
The shelf of medical references.
Everything looked exactly the same as it had looked the evening Lauren had sat in the left chair with her coat still on and handed me an envelope.
But something in the room felt different.
Not lighter, exactly.
More like the air pressure had changed — the way it changes after a long storm finally moves through and the sky goes very clear and very still.
I finished my notes.
May you like
I turned off the desk lamp.
I walked out of the hospital at six-forty-seven, and for the first time in eleven days, I didn't check the street before I got to my car.
