Our home had been transferred into a company he created without my knowledge, and our shared savings had been reduced to a fraction of what they once were. I hired a lawyer named Martin Ellison, who was kind but inexperienced in complex financial cases, and despite his efforts, it was not enough.
At the final hearing, Franklin sat across from me looking calm and composed while Kelly waited outside the courtroom. When the judge finalized the settlement, granting him the house and leaving me with far less than I deserved, Franklin leaned closer and said quietly, “You will never see the children again, I made sure of that.”
I did not cry at that moment, but I memorized his face as carefully as I had memorized everything else.
I left Connecticut that day and drove to my sister Joan Miller’s home in rural Vermont. She opened the door before I knocked, as if she already knew I was coming, and I stayed with her for several weeks trying to rebuild my thoughts piece by piece.