“That’s rich. You’re cheating and I’m a son of a bitch,” Mac growled back.
“What gives you the right…?”
“What gives me the right?” Mac railed in response. “Love and honor? For better or for worse? In sickness and health? Till death do us part? Ring any bells for you there, Meredith?”
“This is your fault, not mine,” she answered, pushing away from the table and standing up. “You screwed everything up. This could have been great but you had to go be a cop.”
“How shallow are you?” Mac replied angrily. “Don’t answer because I now know the answer. But you know when we got married I thought it was for love. I really did. I was in love. I thought you were too. But I was wrong. Instead, at the time I simply met your husband criteria. I’ve come to realize you’re like one of those old Andre Agassi commercials. Image is everything.”
“Give me a break.”
“No, seriously Meredith. It is. You wanted a trophy husband who was good looking, rich with the right career so that you could have some sort of perfect looking life. If love was included, well that would be a nice upgrade but it wasn’t required. It was as if picking a husband was like buying a car to you.”
“You could have taken some of my desires into consideration when you made some of your decisions, Mac. The decision to become a cop was not one that we made. You made it. What I thought didn’t matter. If you loved me you would have taken that into consideration. Instead, you just went ahead and did it.”
“I had to.”
“Oh bullshit,” Meredith sneered as she paced around the kitchen. “This whole obligation to your family crap is what has driven us apart.”
“You know what I don’t get?”
“What?”
“What’s been so bad, Meredith? You live in a beautiful home. Was it beautiful when we bought it? Maybe not. But I made it that way. I worked my ass off on it. Do we have money? We do. Sure I don’t make what I would have as a lawyer, but my investment in the coffee shops has paid off. Our other investments, which I manage, are doing well. We have plenty of money together and more on the way. What was so bad? Why isn’t that enough for you? Why wouldn’t a loving husband and all that be enough?”
“It’s just not. Not for me,” she answered. “I had something else in mind when we got together. I envisioned something else and this wasn’t it. I don’t care what you think of my reasons, Mac. I just don’t care anymore. I’m not happy. I want out. I’ve wanted out for a long time.”
“What, so you and J. Frederick Sterling can go and live that life you’re looking for?”
“He’s unhappy like I am. That’s what led to this. We are both unhappy.”
“So he’s who you want to be with?”
“Yes. I’m sorry but I do.”
“He’s a two-time loser you know. You’d be wife number three.”
“I don’t care.”
Mac shrugged his shoulders. “Okay then. But I have terms.”
“Terms?” Meredith asked quizzically. “We’ll just split everything.”
“You see, that’s not going to work for me,” Mac answered, shaking his head. He held up the picture of Meredith and Sterling in bed. “J. Frederick fill you in on his prenup?”
“I know he has one. She gets $350,000 upon the divorce. We’ve discussed it.”
“I bet that was scintillating pillow talk.”
“Jealous?” Meredith replied, satisfied with herself.
“ Riiiight,” Mac sneered, “of you and J. Fred. I don’t think so. But I do have a question for you.”
“Which is what?”
“Has he asked for a divorce yet?”
“No but he’s going to.”
“Are you sure about that?” Mac asked with a tone that caught her attention. “Do you know about the infidelity clause in his prenuptial agreement?” The look on her face said she didn’t. “I didn’t think so. If he’s busted cheating on his wife he owes her $5,000,000.”
Meredith saw where this was going, “You wouldn’t dare,” she hissed.
Mac snapped his fingers, “Like that. I will not hesitate in the least.”
Meredith sat back down and stared daggers at Mac whose expression was emotionless. After a minute, she quietly asked, “What do you want?”
“I want it all. You keep your retirement plan at work and I get everything else including the house, the investments and the Grand Brew ownership interest. That’s the deal and it is non-negotiable,” Mac answered icily.
“The house? The investments? You take it all?” Meredith asked dumbfounded. “How is that fair?”
“It’s not, and I don’t give a rip,” Mac answered. He had the leverage and intended to use every last bit of it. He had no sympathy for or love left for her at the moment. She had betrayed him, hurt him and he was going to get his pound of flesh. He pulled an envelope out of his backpack addressed to Mrs. Sterling and slid it across the table to Meredith. “My terms or this gets delivered. Your boy will be out five million and he probably won’t look so attractive to you at that point nor you to him. You, in sooooo many ways, will get screwed over if any of this gets out. I’m already gone, but if this gets out, J. Freddy is gone, your career will be gone, everything. So this is the price you will pay for me to go away quietly.” Mac had done the math and on his terms he would come out of the divorce with nearly $500,000 between the house and investments. If Meredith ended up with Sterling after all this she’d be fine. “Agree to my terms and you can have those pictures and they’ll never see the light of day.”
“It’s blackmail.”
“Yes it is, counselor.” He reached inside his backpack and pulled out another manila folder that he slid across the table to Meredith. It contained a divorce settlement with his terms in writing. “I’ll give you twenty-four hours to consider this. But you fuck with me on it and I will burn you at the stake, Meredith. I will do what I say. You know me. You know I will,” he said coldly, absolutely no emotion in his voice. “You’ve got twenty-four hours to look them over.” Mac pushed himself up from the table. He grabbed another beer and twisted the top off. “And you have five minutes to get out of my house.”
A half hour after Meredith left, Lich arrived. In the midst of his second divorce, he was the perfect person to commiserate with. The two detectives sat in front of Mac’s big screen in his family room, watching the Minnesota Wild play the Vancouver Canucks. After two periods, the Wild were leading 3–2. It was a good game, with three fights and lots of physical play. Mac was on his ninth beer at this point, every bit on his way to getting obliterated.
“You need another beer?” Lich asked as he pushed himself up off the couch, having finished his.
“Is the Pope catholic?” Mac responded, holding up his empty.
Lich was back in less than a minute with two beers and one of the Chinese food containers.
Mac told Lich everything about what happened, Meredith cheating, hiring Biggs to investigate her, J. Frederick Sterling, the prenup, the showdown with Meredith, everything. Lich just listened and laughed when appropriate and was amazed at how harsh Mac was in demanding terms in the divorce. It helped Mac to vent but in the end he felt sad and empty. “I just can’t believe I’m sitting here and all of this happened.”
Lich nodded and said, “I hear you, brother.”
“What happens next?” Mac asked. “You’ve been through this, what did you do?”
“Everything wrong,” Lich answered.
“How so?”
“After my first marriage broke apart, I immediately started dating again and I was remarried within a year. That marriage lasted five long, agonizingly painful years, Mac. It was a mistake and frankly it has screwed me for the rest of my life financially. I’ll be paying through the nose.” Lich’s second wife was a social worker and made half what he did. Between alimony for her and his first wife, Dick wasn’t going to be left with much for himself.
“In retrospect what should you have done?”
Lich took a sip of his beer and then said: “If I had to do it over again, Mac, I’d have taken my time. I would have taken a lot of time. I wouldn’t have jumped into anything right away. Men often do that and it ultimately doesn’t work well. The first time around I never let myself heal emotionally and I made some bad decisions and here I am again and I gotta tell you, it’s pretty tough. I find it hard to push out of bed in the morning sometimes,” Lich said, stuffing Chinese food into his cheeks.