Chương 6
Thirty, Claire remembered from the wedding website.
Four years younger than Claire.
It had mattered enormously when Claire first learned it.
At midnight in a parking garage, it seemed stupid.
Maddie handed her the keys.
“Ethan says you’re lying about the house.”
“Of course he does.”
“He says you signed a transfer and changed your mind.”
“I didn’t.”
“I believe you.”
Claire looked at her.
“You shouldn’t yet.”
Maddie was silent.
Claire picked up the items from the hood.
“Believe documents. Believe dates. Believe things you can verify.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It is.”
Maddie tucked the robe tighter around herself.
“Did you know he was seeing me?”
“No.”
“Not at all?”
“I knew there was probably someone.”
“Why?”
Claire considered lying.
“Because he became nicer to me.”
Maddie frowned.
“When Ethan feels guilty, he becomes helpful. He started making the kids’ lunches again. Bought detergent without me asking. One night he cleaned the refrigerator.”
“That’s how you knew?”
“I knew something.”
Maddie looked down.
“He cleaned my refrigerator last month.”
Claire laughed.
She could not help it.
Maddie stared at her.
Then she laughed too.
The sound lasted about three seconds before both women stopped.
It felt obscene and necessary.
Claire wiped beneath one eye.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what part?”
“All of tonight.”
Maddie looked through the van window at the children.
“You shouldn’t have brought them.”
“I know.”
The words hurt more because Maddie said them quietly.
“I didn’t have anyone to leave them with.”
“That’s not why you brought them.”
Claire looked at her.
“No.”
“Why did you?”
Claire opened her mouth.
No answer came that did not make her dislike herself.
Finally she said, “I wanted him to see what he was doing.”
Maddie nodded once.
“And now they saw it too.”
Claire looked through the glass.
Noah was talking to Lucy. Emma had fallen asleep against a booster seat. Sophie still faced the window.
“I know.”
Maddie did not comfort her.
Claire respected her for that.
“Good night, Claire.”
“Maddie.”
She stopped.
“The title company opens at eight thirty Monday. I’m calling them.”
“So am I.”
“If Ethan contacts you—”
“He already has. Twenty-six messages.”
Claire almost smiled.
“Don’t delete them.”
Maddie held her gaze.
“I’m learning.”
Claire drove home through empty streets with the radio off.
Halfway there, Noah asked, “Is Daddy bad?”
Claire gripped the steering wheel.
Sophie looked up from the third row.
Emma was asleep.
Lucy had one shoe off.
“No,” Claire said.
She immediately regretted the certainty.
Noah waited.
Claire tried again.
“Daddy did bad things.”
“Like lying?”
“Yes.”
“And stealing the house?”
“I don’t know everything yet.”
“He tried.”
“Maybe.”
“You said he did.”
“I said the papers weren’t right.”
“Are we losing our house?”
Claire looked at him in the rearview mirror.
There it was.
The thing underneath everything.
Not marriage.
Not humiliation.
Home.
“I’m going to do everything I can to make sure we don’t.”
“That means maybe.”
Sophie whispered, “Noah, stop.”
“I’m just asking.”
“I said stop.”
Claire said, “Soph.”
“He keeps making it worse.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“Yes, he does.”
Noah turned around.
“I didn’t ruin the wedding.”
“I didn’t say you did.”
“You think I did.”
“I don’t.”
“Everybody stared at me.”
Sophie’s voice cracked.
“They stared at all of us.”
Claire pulled into a closed pharmacy parking lot.
She parked beneath a light.
For several seconds nobody spoke.
Then Claire turned around.
“I made the decision to go there.”
Sophie looked at her.
“That was my decision. Not Noah’s. Not yours. Mine.”
“Why?”
Claire could have said because your father was committing fraud.
Because the wedding was a lie.
Because she was desperate.
All true.
None enough.
“Because I was angry.”
Sophie stared.
“And scared.”
Claire swallowed.
“And because I thought making him face us would make him tell the truth.”
“Did it?”
“No.”
Sophie looked out the window again.
Claire started the car.
At home, she put the children to bed one at a time.
Noah asked whether Ethan could still be his father if he married someone else.
Emma wanted to know if they were going to have to move.
Lucy asked again about cake.
Sophie said nothing.
At two in the morning, Claire stood in the kitchen eating dry cereal from a mug because every bowl was in the dishwasher.
Her phone contained forty-three missed calls from Ethan.
Three from Margaret.
One unknown number.
Six messages from Maddie.
The first contained a photograph.
A loan document.
The second contained another.
By the sixth, Claire was sitting down.
Maddie had sent a screenshot from an account she and Ethan had opened for the Portland investment.
Two hundred eighty thousand dollars had been deposited eleven days earlier.
The transaction description referenced the same title company handling Claire’s disputed transfer.
Claire called Maddie.
She answered immediately.
“Did I wake you?”
“I’m still wearing half my wedding hair.”
Claire looked at the microwave clock.
“Do you know where that money came from?”
“No.”
“Ethan said my house closing was Monday.”
“He told me this deposit was a short-term business advance.”
“From who?”
“Cole Development.”
Claire went cold.
Ethan’s father’s company.
Margaret still owned a minority interest. Ethan ran operations.
“Did you invest money too?”
“Seventy-five thousand.”
Claire pressed her fingers against her forehead.
“Your money?”
“Yes.”
“Not family money?”
“My money.”
“Can you access the account?”
“I already froze outgoing transfers.”
Claire sat up.
“You can do that?”
“It requires both approvals above a threshold. Ethan tried to move it at twelve forty-seven.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes.”
“To where?”
“A project account.”
“Portland?”
“I think so.”
Claire stared at the cereal turning soft in the mug.
“Why would he move it during his wedding?”
“Because he knew I was finding things.”
Neither spoke.
Then Maddie said, “Claire?”
“Yeah?”
“I found something else.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“What?”
“A PDF in our shared mortgage folder.”
“What mortgage folder?”
“We were buying a condo.”
Of course they were.
“What PDF?”
“A divorce decree.”
May you like
Claire sat still.
“It has your name on it.”
