Chapter 17 - THE DIVORCE
I filed.
No dramatic annulment.
Celeste and I had a valid marriage.
Eight months.
Prenup.
Separate assets.
Minimal marital accumulation.
Divorce was cleaner than pretending the marriage never existed.
Celeste received:
Her personal property.
Her own savings.
Her car titled to her.
A negotiated temporary housing allowance required under our prenup while proceedings were pending.
No automatic claim to half my consulting firm.
No revenge stripping.
The revised $750,000 postnup was unsigned.
No effect.
Her attorney sought reimbursement for some wedding-related relocation costs and furniture she had purchased.
We resolved those.
Boring.
Correct.
Then Sophie.
Celeste had no legal parental rights.
She had never adopted Sophie.
No standing equivalent to a parent merely because she had been stepmother eight months.
Could she seek visitation under some equitable doctrine?
Her attorney considered it.
Did not file.
The protective order and criminal allegations made the timing terrible.
Celeste wrote through counsel:
“I do not want to disappear from Sophie’s life forever.”
I did not answer personally.
Dr. Morris said:
“Do not promise future contact. Do not promise permanent no-contact either unless court makes it necessary.”
So when Sophie asked:
“Never Celeste?”
I said:
May you like
“Not now.”
That was enough.
