Chương 5
“What?”
“Your office, maybe.”
“I don’t have an office.”
“The desk in the guest room.”
I looked at my purse.
Natalie’s printed drafts were inside it.
But they had only been printed three days ago.
The older notes from my first consultation had been locked in a metal file box beneath winter clothes in the guest room closet.
Mark did not know the key code.
At least I had never given it to him.
“Why do you think that?”
“Because he knew about the lawyer.”
The words landed quietly.
I gripped the edge of the bathroom counter.
“What lawyer?”
Claire whispered, “Yours.”
I did not answer.
“He told Mom you’d been sneaking around with a divorce attorney.”
“When?”
“This morning.”
I looked at the door separating me from my daughters.
“Did he say her name?”
“No.”
“Did he say how he knew?”
“No.”
“Claire.”
“I swear.”
She sounded frightened now.
“Rachel, I’m telling you because something about him is off.”
“What does that mean?”
“He’s not upset the way I expected.”
“How did you expect him to be?”
“Embarrassed.”
She gave a small, humorless laugh.
“Defensive.”
“Sounds accurate.”
“No.”
Her voice sharpened.
“He’s scared.”
That got my attention.
“Of what?”
“I don’t know.”
I thought about Palmer Avenue.
I thought about Natalie’s warning not to make moves.
I thought about Mark somehow learning both that I had spoken to a divorce lawyer and that the company building belonged to me.
Then a different memory surfaced.
Two weeks earlier, I had come home from grocery shopping and found the guest room closet door open.
Mark had said he was looking for the extension cord.
I had believed him because the extension cord was actually in there.
I had even helped him find it.
“Claire, I have to go.”
“Rachel.”
“What?”
“Don’t go home alone.”
I did not tell her I had already been thinking the same thing.
I called Natalie back.
She answered on the second ring.
“What happened?”
“How did you know something happened?”
“You called me twice in one morning.”
I told her what Claire had said.
Natalie stopped me only once.
“Did Mark know about your ownership of Palmer before today?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Could he have discovered it legitimately?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Property records.”
“Anything else?”
“My paperwork.”
“Where?”
“At home.”
There was a pause.
“Do you need anything from the house?”
“Clothes.”
“For you or the girls?”
“All of us.”
“Anything essential?”
“Medication, documents, school things.”
“Then don’t go alone.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Good.”
Her voice became more formal.
“And do not confront him about how he learned any of this.”
“Why?”
“Because right now information is more useful than accusation.”
I sat on the closed toilet lid.
“What do you think he’s doing?”
“I don’t know.”
That was one thing I liked about Natalie.
She never filled uncertainty with theater.
“But if he accessed private legal communications, financial records, or secured documents without permission, I want to know exactly what happened before anybody starts making claims.”
I nodded even though she could not see me.
“What do I do today?”
“Keep the girls with you.”
“Document what happened yesterday while it’s fresh.”
“I remember it.”
“Write it anyway.”
Her voice softened slightly.
“And Rachel?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t turn this into a mystery you have to solve by yourself.”
I looked at the bathroom door.
Emma and Lily were arguing quietly over which television show to put on.
For years, doing things by myself had been the easiest way to avoid Mark telling me I was doing them wrong.
“I’ll try.”
When I stepped back into the room, Emma looked over.
“Are we in trouble?”
The question stopped me.
“No.”
“Because everybody keeps calling.”
“That’s adult stuff.”
She frowned.
“I hate when adults say that.”
“I know.”
“It usually means something bad.”
I sat beside her.
“This part is complicated.”
“Are you and Dad getting divorced?”
There it was.
No dramatic music.
No careful preparation.
Just my ten-year-old daughter holding a television remote and asking the question I had been too afraid to answer for months.
Lily stopped chewing the straw from her juice box.
I looked at both of them.
“I think we are.”
Emma’s face went pale.
Lily said, “Do we still get Christmas?”
I covered my mouth.
A laugh escaped before I could stop it.
Then Emma laughed too.
A second later, all three of us were laughing in a hotel room that smelled like syrup and air-conditioning.
When it ended, Emma wiped her eyes.
“They’re not happy tears.”
“I know.”
“Can I be mad at him and still love him?”
“Yes.”
That answer came easily.
She nodded.
“Okay.”
There was that word again.
Only this time it did not sound like surrender.
It sounded like a child making room for two truths at once.
At three that afternoon, I asked my neighbor, Denise Brennan, to meet me at the house.
She lived across the street, had known Emma since preschool, and possessed the kind of practical courage that came from twenty years as an emergency-room nurse.
When I told her only that I needed to pick up clothes and did not want to go alone, she said, “I’ll be on the porch in ten.”
No questions.
No performance.
When I turned onto Willow Bend, Mark’s truck was in the driveway.
Diane’s Lexus was parked behind it.
I slowed down.
Denise, waiting beside her mailbox, saw them too.
She walked to my passenger window.
“You still going in?”
“Yes.”
“Want me inside or outside?”
“Inside.”
“Good.”
She opened the door before I could change my mind.
The front door was unlocked.
I stepped into the foyer and immediately knew something had changed.
Not because anything was broken.
Because the house was too neat.
The birthday decorations were gone.
The floor had been scrubbed.
The dining table was bare.
Every trace of the previous night had been removed.
Mark came out of the kitchen.
May you like
Diane appeared behind him.
Neither looked surprised to see me.
