Prologue: The Sting Of A Bitter Parting

Wilmont Courthouse, 5th Street and Geller Ave, Divorce Judge, Baltiney, New York...

Seething rage seemed to be in high supply as Richard Henry Grant found himself glaring across the room at his soon-to-be former wife Katherine Myers-Grant as their two highschool aged children looked on from behind their mother's seat. It was clear as day that they had been in support of her over the course of their divorce proceedings and it only added more salt to the wound of the destruction of their twenty-year marriage. It seemed to be the latest in a long line of things that seemed to be falling apart when it came to Richard's life as he'd already lost his ability to practice medicine following a particularly nasty malpractice lawsuit which had been by all accounts false on the part of the claimant, but a judge had been of the mind to make an example of Richard anyway and stripped him of his profession and a good deal of his savings that his now bitter divorce had been contending the remainder of.

Attorney Donald Rutherford Porter had been his only line of defense against sheer bankruptcy due to his rather greedy soon-to-be ex-wife wanting the whole kit and caboodle. The former top Neurosurgeon in the country had been reduced to scraping by on a weekly wage and pinching off his savings minus the college funds for both his son and daughter, but that wasn't enough for Kate who had even been getting the house out of the arrangement.

Richard and Kate had drifted apart following the malpractice lawsuit and as a result, she started having little to no respect for him in terms of their marriage as she began stepping out and lying to his face about where she'd been. He eventually found out after tailing her in his car that she'd been meeting a man from her job every night and booking motel rooms with him.

If that had not been a horrible thing to discover, he had been more than shocked to find out that his own children had known about it and sided with their mother once the confrontation did take place about her breaking their wedding vows. He'd spent so many years providing for the family he hadn't noticed when they'd become spiteful teenagers and went along with their mother's plot to oust him from their lives seeing as he never had time for them when he'd been working.

"In the matter of the joint savings account, the house, and the granting of a divorce I judge Remand Hill rule in favor of the plaintiff." said the old man in the black robes that loomed over them from his high podium.

Kate seemed to be quite smug in her victory as she attempted to play the part of a magnanimous winner despite the children silently celebrating in the background. Richard was in a state of absolute shock as everything he had worked for and the life that he'd built with Kate came crumbling down all around him.

He had no doubt that Kate's lawyer, some slimeball from Washington D.C. had been ever so pleased to tear apart his credibility with the judge due to the malpractice suit he had lost that cost him his license.

Don turned his attention to Richard and placed a hand on the seemingly weary man's shoulder. It had been quite a roller coaster of an event for the man to find out his wife was having an affair, his children think the worst of him, and now he had just lost what little he had left in the way of savings and his home.

"I'm sorry Rich," said Don sadly, pitting the poor man who seemed to have the worst luck with being a two-time loser.

While Don had not represented him in the first case, he was sad to see that he had not done a very good job for his best friend the second time around.

Richard simply sat in silence as he continued to reel over the verdict that did not go in his favor. Despite not wanting to live with him and leave her mother, Trish Grant had made her way over toward her disappointed and highly devastated father as he sat with his hands covering his face as everyone else continued to file out of the courtroom.

"Daddy?" she said softly unsure of how he'd react given what had just happened.

Richard let out a long-winded sigh as he sat back in the chair he occupied since the proceedings had begun that morning.

"Are you okay?" she asked still unsure whether or not she should.

"No," replied Richard honestly with a sad smile for her benefit. "I can't say that I am."

He sighed once more before getting to his feet and walking out of the courtroom without another word or a glance in the direction of his ex-wife and son.

Both hurt and furious, he simply wanted to get as far away from that place as possible.

The moment he stepped out into the open air, he realized that it had been raining pretty hard but he didn't seem to mind it due to the day he'd been having. Richard managed to hail a cab shortly before his ex-wife and children came out of the courtroom and his daughter's sad expression before he slipped inside had been lost on him.

His son had not been too thrilled about the breakup nor the fact that their father had gone away without a word either, but he wanted his mother to be happy and it was always clear to them that she wasn't in the least happy with their father.

Still very much upset about his second loss in court and the fact that his own children sided with their mother in the divorce, Richard instructed the cab to take him to the nearest bar. He had plenty of cash on him that Kate would never get and he decided to spitefully spend it drowning his growing list of sorrows in several rounds of alcohol until he blacked out.

While it wasn't an ideal means of getting back at his ex-wife, he saw no other solution for relief for the pain he endured other than tossing a few back in true embittered fashion.

He had earned it after all.