My father’s employer stiffed him on his wages, so he had no choice but to take a bus into the city to find a lawyer. The old man didn’t know how to use the modern office elevator, so he forced himself to climb 20 flights of stairs just to walk into the law firm, clutching a crumpled, sweat-stained contract. “Arthur… could you take a look at this for me? The contractor owes me $20,000. What should I do?” As a founding partner of a prestigious downtown law firm, Arthur Hayes had taken on countless pro bono cases for stray dogs and local animal shelters. But in this exact moment, he was entirely focused on editing a law school thesis for his firm’s newest, youngest intern. “Twenty grand doesn’t even cover my retainer fee, Mr. Bennett. Sorry, I can’t take this case.” That one, freezing sentence. It made my father’s back—already bent from years of hauling concrete and steel—slump even lower. “Oh… well then, I won’t bother you…” He slowly pulled the paperwork back and stuffed it into his worn canvas bag. As he turned around, even his footsteps seemed heavy with a careful, timid apology. My nose stung violently, tears welling up in my eyes. I stood up, ready to march over and demand an explanation from Arthur. But my father grabbed my hand. “Mia, it’s okay. Dad’s fine. Arthur is a professional, he has rules he has to follow. Don’t be mad at him.” The tears I had been fighting back finally fell. I stood rooted to the spot, watching my father’s hunched silhouette shuffle step by step toward the door. And from the exact moment that door clicked shut. I suddenly realized I never wanted to be a family with Arthur Hayes ever again. … Watching my father’s defeated silhouette disappear, it felt like a match had been struck in my chest, incinerating every last ounce of my rationality. I stormed back into Arthur’s office, grabbed the thesis papers off his desk, and ripped them to shreds. “Are you insane?!” Arthur shot up from his leather chair. “Why won’t you take my dad’s case? Do you have any idea how long he was waiting for you out there?” “I am incredibly busy, Mia. I don’t have time for your tantrums.” “Busy? Busy editing your intern’s thesis? But you don’t have two minutes to look at my dad’s contract?” I scoffed coldly; the sheer hypocrisy of it all was suffocating. “I am an attorney, not a charity.” Arthur’s voice dropped to a glacial temperature. “Do you know what my hourly billable rate is? If I take your dad’s case, the firm loses money.” “But he’s your father-in-law!” I screamed. “So what?” Arthur’s tone grew even darker. “Everyone is equal under the law. Just because he’s a relative, I’m supposed to break professional protocol? If I take a petty claims case today, what will the other partners think of me tomorrow? How am I supposed to maintain my reputation in this industry?” “Arthur, do you even remember why you went to law school in the first place?” Arthur froze. I backed away from him as if I had touched something toxic, looking at him like he was a complete stranger. I didn’t know when it happened. But the man who used to spend hours digging through labor laws for undocumented workers, the man who fought aggressively to get court dates for abused stray cats… The Arthur Hayes who made me fall in love with him a thousand times over… he was completely, permanently gone. “People have to grow up and face reality, Mia. We can’t live in the past.” Ignoring his coldness, I stubbornly asked, “So ‘reality’ means turning your back on your own family?” “Can you please just be reasonable?” He aggressively yanked at his tie, looking annoyed. “My caseload is completely maxed out right now. I literally do not have the bandwidth to deal with your dad’s trivial bullshit.” No bandwidth? I stared down at the desk, looking at the torn pages of the intern’s thesis, covered in his meticulous, handwritten notes. Suddenly, I completely lost the desire to argue with him. “Let’s get a divorce, Arthur.” He froze instantly, the end of his tie slipping from his fingers. “Mia… what did you just say?” “I said, if this is how it is, we need to get a divorce.” As the words hung in the air, I was shocked to find that my heart didn’t actually hurt as much as I expected it to. Instead, it felt like a massive boulder had been lifted off my chest. I calmly turned and walked out of the office. Downstairs on the street level, my father hadn’t gotten very far. He refused to give up. He was shuffling along the block of high-end office buildings, knocking on doors and asking: “Excuse me, are you accepting new cases?” But the moment the receptionists heard the defendant was Bill Dawkins—a notoriously ruthless, bankrupt local developer who was famous for dodging debts—they all waved him off and kicked him out. It was 95 degrees outside, and the blazing sun beating down on my father made him look incredibly fragile and pathetic. I aggressively wiped the tears from my eyes and jogged to catch up to him. “Dad, please don’t worry. I’ll figure something out.” When my father saw me, he looked surprised and quickly raised his hand to block the glaring sun. “It’s boiling out here, what are you doing running around? I was just trying my luck, it’s no big deal.” Trying his luck. He rode a Greyhound bus for six hours and climbed twenty flights of stairs, just to try his luck? I opened my mouth, intending to tell him about the divorce. Right then, his flip phone rang. [Is this Mr. Bennett? This is Attorney Lewis. Mr. Hayes assigned me to handle your case.] When the call ended, a massive, relieved smile broke across my father’s weathered face. “Mia, did you hear that?” “Arthur got someone to help me! I told you, he has a good heart, he’s just really swamped with work!” The moment he said that, my own phone vibrated twice in my pocket. [I assigned Lewis to handle your dad’s case. Do not casually threaten divorce over petty arguments ever again.] I stared at the screen, stunned. When I looked up, my father was smiling warmly, pulling a plastic bag of small, stubby bananas from his canvas sack. “Your mom cut these fresh from the backyard this morning. She picked the short, fat ones specifically. The skin is thin, and they’re super sweet.” “Take them home and share them with Arthur. And please, don’t fight with him…” My eyes burned with fresh tears, and I hugged the bag of bananas tightly to my chest. “I promise, Dad. Just wait until the lawsuit is over.” Wait until I finalize my divorce from Arthur. “I will never let anyone treat you guys like this again.” Three days later, I used my PTO to accompany my father to the courthouse for the hearing. “Once we get that paycheck back, I’m going to buy your mom a nice new coat.” “And I can finally give your uncle some cash to help your cousin buy a laptop for college.” Just the thought of finally getting his hard-earned money back visibly improved the old man’s mood. He chattered excitedly the entire drive. But when we arrived at the courthouse exactly on time… Attorney Lewis, the man who had contacted my father three nights ago, had vanished into thin air. He wasn’t answering his phone. “Did Mr. Lewis get the time wrong?” My father sat at the plaintiff’s table, anxiously picking at the thick calluses on his hands. “Mia, Arthur set this up. Do you want to try calling Arthur and asking him?” Before I could even pull up Arthur’s contact, the heavy courtroom doors swung open. The person who walked in wasn’t Attorney Lewis. It was the defense attorney representing Bill Dawkins. It was Chloe Adams. The young intern whose thesis Arthur was meticulously editing instead of helping my father. At that exact moment, Attorney Lewis finally called me back. “I am so sorry, Mia. Arthur unexpectedly dispatched me out of state for an emergency corporate deposition. I had to drop your dad’s case.” As the call disconnected, Chloe’s voice rang out clearly across the courtroom. “Your Honor, I am Chloe Adams, representing the defense, Mr. Bill Dawkins, on behalf of the Hayes Law Group. The defense is ready to proceed.” Hayes Law Group. Defense Counsel… Those few words completely shattered the hopeful anticipation in my father’s heart. “Mia, Hayes Law Group… isn’t that your husband’s firm? What… what does Arthur mean by this?” My heart felt like it had been violently struck with a sledgehammer. I never imagined Arthur would intentionally sabotage us by pulling his lawyer at the last minute. But I never, in my darkest nightmares, imagined he would allow Chloe to flip my father from the plaintiff into the defendant. “The defense hereby files a countersuit against the plaintiff, Mr. Bennett, regarding this labor dispute.” “The grounds for the countersuit are as follows: First, during his tenure, Mr. Bennett managed a contracting crew that violated municipal building codes, resulting in substandard construction that caused direct, severe financial damages to my client.” Chloe continued ruthlessly, showing absolutely no mercy: “Second, during the construction process, the defendant, Mr. Bennett, utilized substandard materials, blatantly violating the terms of his contract. Third, Fourth…” “In conclusion, the defense respectfully requests the court order Mr. Bennett to compensate my client for all damages, totaling exactly $80,000.” The hearing lasted for two agonizing hours. Without legal representation, and without a single witness willing to testify on his behalf against a powerful developer. Even my desperate attempts to interject and plead his case were aggressively objected to and shut down. He stood there entirely alone, stammering and stuttering as he tried to explain. The more panicked he got, the more incoherent his defense became. The judge’s expression slowly shifted from sympathetic to visibly annoyed. We lost. By the end of the trial, the $20,000 in unpaid wages had quadrupled. It was now a court-ordered mandate for my father to pay Bill Dawkins $80,000 in damages. As we walked out of the courtroom, my father clutched the court order, his hands shaking violently. “It’s okay, Dad, it’s okay… I’ll figure something out.” I held his hand tightly, my nose burning with the desperate urge to cry. Right then, a sleek black Mercedes pulled up to the curb. When Arthur stepped out of the driver’s seat, the dead, defeated look in my father’s eyes suddenly flared with desperate hope. He gripped the court order and rushed toward him. “Arthur, you’re here! Did you come to help Dad…” But Arthur walked right past him. He walked right past me, too. He popped open a large umbrella and stopped directly in front of Chloe. “Good job in there. Are you exhausted? I made reservations at that French bistro you love to celebrate your first win.” Chloe smiled brightly and looped her arm through his. “It’s all thanks to you, Mr. Hayes! If you hadn’t helped me prep all the exhibits, I never would have felt confident enough to file a countersuit.” “You’re a naturally gifted litigator. I just helped polish the edges.” They laughed and joked, completely ignoring our existence, as they started walking down the courthouse steps. My fingernails dug so deeply into my palms they almost drew blood. I screamed after him: “Arthur Hayes! Are you fucking deaf?! Can you not hear my dad calling you?!” The air around us instantly froze. Bill Dawkins walked out of the courthouse, his eyes darting back and forth between Arthur and my father. “Mr. Hayes, is this man really your father-in-law?” Arthur didn’t even blink. “Never seen him before in my life.” The tension in Dawkins’ face instantly evaporated. He turned and glared viciously at my father. “You old piece of trash. Did you hear that? The big-shot lawyer doesn’t even know who you are. You actually had the balls to pretend to be his father-in-law? Why don’t you go look in a mirror and see how pathetic you are?” My father’s face turned a deep, mottled red. His lips trembled violently, but he couldn’t force a single word out. “Arthur, you absolute piece of shit!” I screamed again at the top of my lungs. But the man merely paused for a fraction of a second, before Chloe whined, “Mr. Hayes, I’m starving.” Without a moment’s hesitation, he started the Mercedes and sped away, leaving us in the dust. My father stood on the courthouse steps, clutching the devastating court order, his body swaying unsteadily. “Dad?!” I lunged forward to catch him. “Dad, what’s wrong?!” He looked at me. His cloudy, aged eyes were brimming with tears, but he absolutely refused to let them fall. “Mia… did Dad embarrass you today?” The dam finally broke, and my tears flooded down my face. “No, Dad, no…” “Then why… why won’t your husband claim me?” Even after I put him on a bus back to our rural hometown, I couldn’t give him an answer. For the very first time in my life, I hated myself for being so utterly powerless. I hated myself for marrying the wrong man. “Arthur, what the hell was that today?!” When I got back to our apartment, I genuinely thought Arthur would feel a shred of guilt or offer an apology. Instead, the moment I spoke, he slammed back with a ridiculous, defensive counter-attack: “What the hell was your problem today? Screaming my name in public like a lunatic while some random bricklayer tries to claim he’s related to me? Do you have any idea how humiliating that was?” “So that gives you the right to lie to me?! To intentionally pull my dad’s lawyer and let him get blindsided in court?! He lost his wages and now he owes $80,000!” I let out a harsh, bitter laugh, my eyes stinging with tears. A brief flash of discomfort crossed Arthur’s face, but he quickly recovered his arrogant composure. “I genuinely did assign Lewis to the case,” he said defensively. “But I honestly didn’t know Chloe had been retained by Dawkins.” “The other partners at the firm already think Chloe is underqualified. If she lost this case, her chances of securing a permanent associate position were dead in the water.” Even though I had fully accepted exactly how important Chloe was to him. Hearing him prioritize her career over my father’s life still forced hot, angry tears into my eyes. “So that gives you the right to fabricate evidence and frame my dad?!” “My job is to win lawsuits.” Arthur stood up, glaring down at me with absolute aristocratic disdain. “Bill Dawkins is a premium client. He pays this firm hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in retainer fees. And your dad? What the hell can your dad do for me?” He maliciously kicked the trash can next to his desk, knocking it over. Inside was the plastic bag of small bananas my father had brought. I hadn’t even had a chance to eat them yet. “Give me garbage like this?” Garbage? He actually called the fruit my father spent months cultivating by hand garbage? It’s terrifying how quickly a human heart can mutate. When we first moved to the city in our early twenties, we had absolutely nothing. It was my parents, working grueling manual labor jobs back home in the country, chopping down banana trees and hauling bricks. It was the crumpled, sweat-stained cash they mailed us every month that allowed us to rent our very first apartment in the city. But the man standing in front of me now… he wasn’t the man I fell in love with. He felt like a complete, terrifying stranger. “Don’t look at me like that.” He irritably yanked his tie loose. “Whatever, I’ll call the bank and arrange a loan to cover your dad’s settlement. $80,000 isn’t that much, I can set up a payment plan for him…” SMACK!
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