Irreconcilable Differences

Set: A dock on Big Bear Lake. A cooler between them. Three pairs of feet dangling over the water. Sun is setting, mosquitoes are testing courage, and the work talk’s drifting off-script.

Judge Morrison took a long pull then let out a grunt that had less to do with the whiskey and more to do with the decades parked on his shoulders.

“The phrase means everything and nothing,” he said. “It’s a catch-all. A mercy. A lie we give them so they can walk away with something noble.”

Linda, the paralegal, snorted. “That’s poetic. But you’re drunk. And I’ve seen your calendar. Half those irreconcilables come in hating each other over a dirty NutriBullet.”

“That's nothing,” said Tom, the divorce lawyer, slapping at a mosquito on his shin. “One of mine last year? She couldn’t stand the way he chewed. Thirty years married, two adult kids, and she tells me—swear to god—‘Every bite sounds like he’s murdering a wet sock.’”

Morrison chuckled. “That one’s not so bad. I had a case back in ’09 where the guy installed a urinal in the kitchen. Said it was efficient. She said it was ‘spiritually corrosive.’ That’s the phrase she used. Wrote it right on the petition.”

Linda leaned back on her elbows. “Y’all are amateurs. I had a couple that split over dog astrology.”

“Dog astrology?”

“She’d hired this pet psychic who said their labrador’s aura was being ‘disrupted’ by the husband's energy. He laughed. She cried. They were in court three weeks later.”

Tom raised his bottle in a toast. “To disrupted dog energy.”

They all drank.

The lake lapped against the dock.

“But like...what is it, really? Irreconcilable differences. Not the punchline kind. The real kind. I mean, outside the court lingo. What makes a person look at someone they used to love and say: ‘Nope. No more.’”

A branch snapped behind them. Then a thud. Then a muffled “I’m fine”.

Tom cleared his throat.

“There was this guy, quiet, wore a tie even in July. They’d been married eighteen years. She said he never yelled, never cheated, never drank, never hit. But she looked so small in that chair, you know? Like she was holding her breath for the past decade. I finally ask her what happened. And she says—”

A fish jumped then vanished in a quiet splash.

“‘He leaves the hallway light on. Every night. Even though he knows I can’t sleep with it. Every night.’”

“That’s it?” Linda asked.

“That’s it,” Tom said. “Only... it wasn’t it. The hallway light was the language. What she meant was, he didn’t see her. Or didn’t care to. She had begged in a thousand tiny ways and he’d ignored every one.”

Morrison nodded slowly. “Death by paper cuts.”

“Exactly.”

Linda sat up. “You think maybe the difference isn’t always what it is but what it represents?”

“Bingo,” Tom said. “Some folks’ll forgive an affair faster than they’ll forgive silence.”

Judge Morrison looked out over the water. “You know what case stuck with me? Real quiet one. No property fight, no custody battle. Just a woman—maybe forty-five, worked nights at a hospital. Her husband came in to sign the papers and started crying halfway through. Said, ‘I thought we were fine. We don’t fight.’ And she said, ‘That’s the problem. We don’t do anything. We’re roommates who nod.’”

He picked at the label on his bottle. “She said the only time she heard him laugh anymore was when he talked to the dog.”

They all sat with that one a while.

The night got colder and the lake went still.

Linda finally said, “So maybe the worst sin isn’t cruelty. It’s indifference. Not ‘I hate you.’ Just... ‘I can’t reach you.’”

Tom gave a slow nod. “That’s irreconcilable.”

Judge Morrison stood, stretched his old back and said, “Well. That or putting a urinal next to the Instant Pot.”

They all laughed harder than the line deserved.

And for a moment the dock was warm.