My lawyer's office was above a pharmacy.
There was a small waiting room with mismatched chairs.
I brought pay stubs, tax returns, and statements showing the company's collapse.
The attorney, Ms. Moreno, reviewed them carefully.
“You're asking about a support modification,” she said.
“Yes.”
“You understand the order remains in place unless the court changes it?”
“I do.”
She explained that a judge would examine my actual earning capacity and circumstances.
Voluntary unemployment would be treated differently from a documented business failure.
Past due amounts would not necessarily disappear.
We filed the appropriate paperwork.
I sent Helena notice through the proper channels rather than asking her to agree over the telephone.
She later called me.
“I got the filing.”
“I wanted to tell you first.”
“You could have. But I understand why you need the review.”
I waited for another sentence.
There wasn't one.
“I'm not trying to avoid helping,” I said.
“Then keep records and follow the process.”
She sounded as though she had said those words many times before.
The hearing did not happen immediately.
There were documents to exchange.
I kept working.
I paid what I could under the existing order and discussed the remaining balance with my attorney.
The case moved at the pace of paperwork, not regret.
At the same time, the insolvency lawyer helped me understand the business debt.
Some equipment had been sold.
Some creditors negotiated smaller monthly payments.
A personal guarantee remained my responsibility.
There was no single document that erased my bad decisions.
I began a simple budget.
Rent.
Groceries.
Transport.
Support.
Debt payment.
Emergency savings.
I left a narrow line at the bottom for spending with the children.
I wanted it to be bigger.
I was learning that wanting did not create money.
Victor came by one evening with an old bicycle.
“Leon says you walk to the bus stop in the dark,” he said.
“I manage.”
“It's a bike, Ross. Not a declaration of bankruptcy.”
I laughed.
We adjusted the seat together.
He asked about the children.
I told him about Lucy's birthday.
He listened without softening the facts.
“Did you make it right?”
“I apologized. She had cake with me.”
“Then keep going.”
That was Victor's advice for almost everything.
Keep going.
Not because it guaranteed forgiveness.
Because one dependable week had to be followed by another.
The support hearing wasn't the only paperwork I had to face.
My old business records were disorganized.
There were receipts tucked into shoeboxes.
Several invoices had no matching delivery confirmation.
Some customers still disputed what we had supplied.
Anita helped me separate finished transactions from unresolved ones.
“Don't call everything a disaster,” she said. “Name the problem you're looking at.”
She held up one folder.
“This is a tax issue.”
Another.
“This is a supplier balance.”
A third.
“This is a customer complaint.”
The categories mattered because each required a different response.
For years I had taken every difficult letter personally.
Then I either avoided it or reacted with anger.
Now I wrote down a deadline beside each item.
Some could be negotiated.
Some needed professional advice.
Some simply needed to be paid.
On a quiet Sunday, I organized the files into a plastic crate.
I labeled the folders with a black marker.
When I finished, the room didn't look richer.
It looked calmer.
Helena called that evening to confirm the summer dates.
I told her I had arranged time off for the first scheduled weekend.
She asked whether I had suitable sleeping arrangements for the children.
I said I was researching a family room nearby.
“Please send the details before you book,” she said.
“I will.”
I could have taken that as mistrust.
Instead, I recognized that she was responsible for their safety and routines too.
We had to make a plan both parents understood.
That was not an insult.
Afterward, I called the hotel and asked about bed arrangements, fire exits, and breakfast hours.
The clerk answered patiently.
I wrote everything down.
I compared prices before paying the deposit.
That practical preparation did not resemble the spontaneous life I once claimed to miss.
It was better.
For once, I was creating a weekend the children could rely on rather than a weekend designed to make me feel adventurous.
At the courthouse, I noticed a man arguing with a clerk about paperwork.
He insisted the office should have called him before a deadline passed.
The clerk explained that the notice had been mailed to his listed address.
I recognized the frustration in his voice.
I had spent years treating administrative details as somebody else's responsibility.
I checked my own folder twice before approaching the counter.
The clerk verified that my documents were complete.
I thanked her and sat down.
There was a time when I would have considered a morning at the courthouse wasted.
Now I understood that this was part of keeping my responsibilities to the children in order.
After the hearing, I visited Anita to update my budget.
She showed me how to separate fixed expenses from variable ones.
We estimated a realistic amount for groceries and transport.
I had been putting too much pressure on the lowest possible figures.
“Your budget has to survive a rainy week,” she said.
“And a sick child?” I asked.
“Yes. And that too.”
I increased the emergency-savings line slightly.
It meant reducing spending somewhere else.
I stopped buying coffee on the way to work.
It was a small adjustment, not a punishment.
That evening, Holly asked if we could get hot chocolate on our next outing.
I checked the budget.
There was room for that.
I said yes.
Then I put the date in the calendar, where promises belonged.
I began keeping every receipt for the children's expenses in one envelope. That made discussions with Helena easier. We could refer to actual amounts instead of disagreeing about memories. Once, I had miscalculated the cost of a camp deposit. I caught the error before the due date and told Helena. She thanked me for checking. We split the expense according to our agreement. There was no argument. That quiet exchange mattered because money had once been one of the sharpest points between us. I had treated questions as accusations. Now I tried to treat them as questions. The children were better served when both households knew what they had agreed to pay.
Click here to continue reading: PART 11: Helena Told Me What the Last Year of Our Marriage Had Really Cost Her
The Man in Helena’s Kitchen Knew Our Daughter’s Routine Better Than I Did
Part 10 of 16
