Chương 5
She folded her arms.
"Stop doing that."
"Doing what?"
"Looking at me like I'm a baby."
Ethan sighed.
"Fine."
He looked at me.
"Two weeks ago, Dad picked me up after basketball practice."
"You don't play basketball."
"It was open gym."
"Sorry."
For some reason, correcting the detail mattered.
Maybe because every other fact in my life had become unstable.
Ethan continued.
"Rebecca called him through the car speakers."
My chest tightened.
"What did she say?"
"She didn't know I was there."
He rubbed his hands over his jeans.
"She said she had found another listing."
Sophie looked at him.
"For what?"
"I don't know."
"Did Dad answer?"
"He disconnected the call really fast."
"And then?"
"He told me she was helping someone from church look for a place."
I closed my eyes for a moment.
Ethan's voice softened.
"I didn't believe him."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
He looked ashamed.
"I thought maybe you knew."
The same answer.
Both children had assumed I knew the shape of my own marriage.
Both had been wrong.
That hurt more than I expected.
I stood and walked to the sink.
There were three dishes in it.
I washed them because I needed to do something with my hands.
Behind me, Sophie asked Ethan whether Dad loved Rebecca.
Ethan said he did not know.
Then he looked at me.
I kept my back turned.
"I don't know either," I said.
No one spoke after that.
The next morning, I woke at four thirty even though I had barely slept.
Mark's side of the bed was untouched.
The absence looked theatrical.
I stripped the sheets anyway.
At six, I made coffee and burned the first batch of toast.
At six fifteen, Ethan came down already dressed.
"You never burn toast."
"Apparently I've been living recklessly."
He almost smiled.
It vanished quickly.
"Is Dad coming back?"
"I don't know."
"Did he text?"
I checked my phone.
There were five messages from Mark.
Can we talk today.
I am sorry about last night.
Please don't involve the kids any more than necessary.
Rebecca did not stay with me.
I went to a hotel.
Please confirm Sophie got to sleep okay.
The fourth message irritated me so much I nearly laughed.
"He says he's at a hotel."
Ethan opened the refrigerator.
"Sure."
"You don't know that he isn't."
"I don't know anything anymore."
He took out orange juice.
Then he looked at me.
"Are you getting divorced?"
"I don't know yet."
"You keep saying that."
"Because it's true."
He poured too much juice and some spilled over the rim.
He swore quietly.
I handed him a paper towel.
"There are things I need to understand before I decide what I'm doing."
"Like what?"
"Money."
He stared at me.
"What did he do with money?"
I had not meant to say that much.
I wiped the counter.
"Nothing I can explain yet."
His expression hardened again.
"You're doing the adult problems thing."
I put down the towel.
"You're right."
That surprised him.
"Your dad changed information connected to our mortgage without telling me."
"What information?"
"He told the lender I no longer lived here."
Ethan stared.
"That's insane."
"It may be more complicated than that."
"Doesn't sound complicated."
"Most things sound simple when you're angry."
He looked at me.
"So you're defending him now?"
"No."
"Kind of sounds like it."
"I am trying not to say things I can't take back."
He grabbed his backpack.
"Maybe he should've tried that before changing your address."
Then he left for school.
I stood in the kitchen with spilled orange juice drying under my hand.
At nine, Claire called.
"Can you come to my office?"
"I thought lawyers liked phones."
"Lawyers like invoices."
"Comforting."
She ignored that.
"Bring the screenshots, the mortgage reference number, and anything you photographed from Mark's folder."
I arrived in Nashville a little before eleven.
Claire's office was on the fourth floor of a building that smelled faintly of old carpet and expensive coffee.
She wore navy slacks, a white blouse, and reading glasses she had once sworn she would never need.
"You look terrible," she said.
"So do you."
"Good."
She handed me coffee.
"Now we're communicating honestly."
I sat.
She closed her office door.
"First, I want to separate three issues."
I nodded.
"Marriage."
"House."
"And money."
"Correct."
She opened a legal pad.
"Have you decided whether you want to file?"
"No."
"Okay."
She did not push.
"Then we don't make that decision today."
She looked at the photographs from Mark's folder.
"Did he explain this valuation?"
"He said he was looking at buying out my share."
"Did he say how?"
"Financing."
"Anything else?"
"No."
She tapped one page.
"This estimate is lower than I would expect."
"How much lower?"
"I don't appraise houses."
"Claire."
"Probably low enough that I wouldn't accept it without an independent valuation."
I looked at the paper.
The number Mark had apparently been using was almost ninety thousand dollars below what I thought the house might sell for.
My mouth went dry.
"He was going to buy me out at this number?"
"I don't know."
"But that's what it looks like."
"It looks like a number someone gave him."
She leaned back.
"Do not turn an inference into a fact."
I hated when she was sensible.
"Can we find out?"
"Yes."
"How?"
"First, we identify who prepared it."
She zoomed in on the photograph.
There was a company name in small print at the bottom.
Franklin Residential Consulting.
Claire searched the Tennessee business registry.
The company existed.
The registered agent's name meant nothing to me.
She wrote it down.
"Second, we request records properly."
"From Mark?"
"Eventually."
"Eventually sounds slow."
"It is."
I looked out her window at traffic moving along Church Street.
People were carrying lunch bags.
A delivery driver argued with someone beside a loading zone.
The city appeared offensively normal.
Claire folded her hands.
May you like
"Laura, I need to ask you something you may not like."
"Join the club."
