The fluorescent light overhead hummed with a low, agonizing drone. Between them sat a polished mahogany table, split down the middle by a crisp stack of white legal paper.

Arthur stared at the black ink of his own signature, still wet on the line marked Petitioner.

Across from him, Elena sat with her hands clasped tightly in her lap. Her shoulders were tense, framed by the quiet, sterile formality of the lawyer’s office. Twenty years. How had two decades of living, breathing, shared existence boiled down to a man in a charcoal suit pointing a Parker pen at a dotted line?