She sat through the entire divorce hearing even though I told her not to come

Dear Delyara, My divorce hearing was supposed to be straightforward, so I told my friend Anna not to waste a day of annual leave sitting in court. She came anyway. She sat at the back with a book she barely opened. The hearing became much harder than expected. My former husband challenged finances, old accusations resurfaced, and I had to listen while twelve years of marriage became figures, dates, and competing versions of who had failed whom. When it ended, I walked into the corridor shaking. Anna did not ask whether I had won. She opened her handbag and handed me a cheese sandwich. She had brought two because, in her words, “Court looks like the sort of place that forgets lunch exists.” We sat on a hard bench between strangers waiting for completely different cases and ate without talking. Years later, I remember almost none of the lawyer’s exact sentences. I remember the sandwich. I remember looking to the back of the courtroom during one horrible moment and seeing Anna there. Friendship that day was not advice, loyalty speeches, or choosing sides. It was someone using a precious day off to make sure that when my marriage was formally taken apart, I would not have to walk out carrying the pieces by myself.