Chương 6
By the time the girls came downstairs, I had already put the folder away.
Sophia noticed anyway.
She always noticed.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Are you and Daddy fighting?”
I looked at her.
Children always seemed to know when adults were lying.
“We’re having problems.”
She nodded.
“Because of Grandma?”
I hesitated.
“Partly.”
She climbed onto the chair.
“Is she mad because you left?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I poured cereal into bowls.
“Because sometimes adults don’t like it when someone tells them their behavior hurt another person.”
Sophia thought about that.
“That sounds like when Chloe takes my crayons and says she didn’t.”
I smiled despite myself.
“Yes.”
“Except Grandma is bigger.”
“Exactly.”
She seemed satisfied with that explanation.
Kids did not need every detail.
They needed honesty they could carry.
At school drop-off, Sophia hugged me longer than usual.
“Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“Are we still a family?”
The question stopped me.
I looked at her small backpack.
The loose strand of hair near her face.
The way she was trying to ask about divorce without knowing the word.
“Yes,” I said.
She studied me.
“Even if people are mad?”
“Yes.”
She nodded.
Then she ran inside.
I stayed there until she disappeared through the doors.
Not because I wanted to watch her.
Because I needed to remind myself what mattered.
That afternoon, Andrew called.
I almost let it go to voicemail.
Almost.
Then I answered.
“Hello.”
“Where are you?”
I looked around my office.
“Working.”
“You didn’t answer my messages.”
“I didn’t receive any.”
There was a pause.
“You blocked me?”
“No.”
Another pause.
“I thought maybe you did.”
“Why?”
He did not answer.
That question had probably revealed more than he intended.
“What do you need, Andrew?”
“I need to know what you’re doing.”
The words irritated me.
Not because they were aggressive.
Because they were vague.
“What does that mean?”
“You know what it means.”
“No, I don’t.”
He lowered his voice.
“Are you talking to Rebecca?”
I stared at the wall.
The fact that he knew immediately was interesting.
“Why would that matter?”
“Because this is becoming bigger than it needs to be.”
“Bigger?”
“Yes.”
I almost smiled.
“My daughters were humiliated in front of your entire family.”
“I know.”
“No.”
My voice sharpened.
“You know it happened.”
Silence.
“You do not know what it felt like.”
He did not argue.
That surprised me.
Then he said,
“I talked to my mother.”
I straightened.
“What did she say?”
“She said she was trying to protect the family.”
I waited.
“And what did you say?”
“I told her she went too far.”
It was something.
Not enough.
But something.
“What did she say?”
Andrew was quiet.
“She said you were always too sensitive.”
I laughed softly.
“Of course she did.”
“Lauren.”
“What?”
“I’m trying.”
The sentence was almost a whisper.
And for a second, I felt the old instinct.
The instinct to comfort him.
To tell him effort mattered.
To make room for his discomfort.
Then I remembered Sophia asking if her father was ashamed of her.
“I believe you think you are.”
The silence afterward was painful.
Not angry.
Painful.
“Do you really think that little of me?”
I looked down at my desk.
At the contracts.
The reports.
The work I had built.
“No.”
I answered honestly.
“I think you think love means someone will keep absorbing the damage.”
He did not respond.
“Andrew, I cannot do that anymore.”
His voice changed.
Not anger.
Fear.
“What happens now?”
I looked at the city outside.
“I don’t know.”
That was the truth.
For the first time in years, I did not have a plan designed around fixing someone else’s problem.
“I think we find out what is real.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means no more assumptions.”
I ended the call before we could return to the same argument.
Later that evening, Rebecca sent me the information she had requested.
The company connected to the transfer was not random.
It was owned by one of Andrew’s former business partners.
A man named Michael Trent.
Someone Andrew had once described as his closest friend.
The payment itself was not illegal.
Not obviously.
But the timing raised questions.
Especially because Andrew had told me he needed my help because he was facing a temporary financial crisis.
Three months later, money had gone somewhere else.
And he had never mentioned it.
I read the email twice.
Then I looked at the date.
The same week he signed the promise to repay me.
The same week he looked me in the eyes and said I was the only person he could trust.
My phone buzzed.
A message from Andrew.
I expected anger.
An accusation.
A demand.
Instead, there were only four words.
I need to tell you something.
I stared at the screen.
Then another message appeared.
But you need to promise you won’t hate me.
I stared at the screen for almost a full minute.
The message remained there.
But you need to promise you won’t hate me.
There were so many possible responses.
Who is Michael Trent?
What did you do?
How much did you lie?
Why did you let me believe something that was not true?
Instead, I typed the shortest answer I could.
I cannot promise that.
The reply came faster than I expected.
Fair.
I almost put the phone down.
Then another message appeared.
But I hope you listen before you decide.
I looked at those words for a long time.
That was the thing about Andrew.
He could still reach the part of me that remembered the good moments.
The early years.
The man who used to leave notes in my lunch bag before work.
The man who drove across town during a storm because I had forgotten my car keys.
The man who held Sophia the night she was born and cried harder than I did.
That person existed.
That was what made everything complicated.
May you like
People were not always one thing.
Someone could love you and still hurt you.
