The morning he said he was “taking a few days off to work on us.”
At 10:14 that morning, I had been in a budget meeting.
I remembered glancing at my phone and texting him:
Need anything from the store on my way home?
He had replied:
Just you. Love you.
The same two words that ended his message on the night he was in a boutique hotel while I was in Boston.
I photographed the screen because I didn’t trust myself to remember what I was seeing.
Then I stepped into the stairwell and called Naomi Brooks, the attorney I had met after the mall.
Chapter 7
Naomi had a voice like warm tea.
She listened to me explain.
Then she said:
“First of all, breathe. Second, do not move any of that money. Not one dollar, in either direction. Don’t touch the accounts, don’t threaten him, and please don’t confront him tonight while you’re this angry.”
“So I do nothing?”
“You do something more useful than nothing. You give him the chance to tell you himself.”
Her voice sharpened gently.
“People show you who they are by what they do when they believe the door is still open. Ask him an open question tonight. Not a trap, an invitation. And then listen.”
“And if he lies?”
“Then you’ll know exactly who you’re dealing with, and it will be the last time you ever have to wonder.”
That evening, I came home to garlic and a jazz playlist Daniel had made, as if music could rearrange the furniture of our marriage.
He served pasta.
I ate three bites and pushed the rest around my plate.
“Daniel,” I said, in the calmest voice I had ever used, “is there anything about our money you want to tell me?”
He looked up.
