Chương 3
Rebecca folded her hands in her lap.
“When what?”
“When did you marry my brother?”
“Eight years ago.”
Daniel glanced at Aaron.
“You never mentioned it.”
Aaron shrugged once.
“Wasn’t exactly a proud period.”
“Apparently not.”
Rebecca straightened.
“We were married for four months.”
“You were married for more than four months if you’re still married.”
“We lived together for four months.”
“Thank you for improving the sentence.”
“Daniel.”
“Don’t say my name like that.”
Her mouth tightened.
Aaron shifted again.
Daniel turned on him.
“And you don’t get to stand there enjoying this.”
“I’m not.”
“You’ve wanted to embarrass me since Dad died.”
“That is not why I came.”
“You sent your seven-year-old daughter into a wedding with evidence in an envelope.”
“I was outside trying to get myself to walk in.”
“That doesn’t make the first part better.”
Aaron’s eyes flicked toward the floor.
“No.”
Daniel turned back to Rebecca.
“You said six weeks.”
She did not answer.
“Aaron told you six weeks ago the divorce wasn’t final.”
“Yes.”
Hannah looked down.
Daniel felt his pulse in his throat.
“And what did you do?”
“I called an attorney.”
“Which attorney?”
“That matters right now?”
“It matters to me.”
“Jennifer Shaw. Family law.”
“Did she tell you that you were divorced?”
Rebecca rubbed her thumb across the side of one silver earring.
“No.”
“What did she tell you?”
“That she couldn’t locate a final decree.”
Aaron gave a humorless breath.
Rebecca snapped toward him.
“You didn’t know either.”
“I knew.”
“No, you assumed.”
“I checked.”
“When?”
“January.”
“After eight years?”
Aaron lifted both hands.
“Yeah, Rebecca. After eight years. I’m not claiming a medal.”
Daniel looked at his brother.
“Why January?”
Aaron hesitated.
“Lily had a school thing.”
Daniel waited.
“What school thing?”
“A family-history assignment.”
The room became quieter.
“She needed dates. Birthplaces. Marriages.”
Daniel stared at him.
“You told a seven-year-old about this for a school project?”
“No. I went looking for the date because I couldn’t remember it.”
Rebecca shut her eyes.
“You are unbelievable.”
Aaron looked at her.
“I found the marriage certificate. Couldn’t find the divorce.”
“And then?”
“I called the county where the petition had been filed. They said the case had been dismissed years ago.”
Rebecca’s head lifted.
Daniel looked at her.
“Dismissed.”
“I knew that.”
“When?”
A small pause.
“Years ago.”
Daniel stopped moving.
Hannah leaned against the door.
Aaron said nothing.
Rebecca looked directly at Daniel.
“The first petition was dismissed.”
“The first?”
“I filed again.”
“When?”
“Six weeks ago.”
Daniel stared at her.
Rebecca stood.
“Aaron and I separated eight years ago. We signed documents. I thought we were done. I moved. He moved. We had no shared property left. No children together. Nothing.”
“You knew the case was dismissed.”
“I knew the old case was dismissed.”
“So you knew you were not divorced.”
“I knew there was a problem.”
“You knew you had a husband.”
“It did not feel like a marriage.”
Daniel laughed.
It surprised him as much as anyone.
Not because anything was funny. Because the sentence was so carefully constructed that he could hear the months Rebecca must have spent building it.
She flinched.
He looked at Hannah.
“What happened in February?”
Rebecca answered.
“I told her about Aaron.”
“All of it?”
“No.”
Hannah spoke quietly.
“She told me there had been an old marriage that never got properly closed out.”
Rebecca’s eyes flashed.
“Hannah.”
“That is what you told me.”
“Enough.”
Daniel picked up the ring.
“You wore this?”
Rebecca stared at it.
“For four months.”
“Did you throw it away?”
“No.”
“Aaron kept it?”
She looked toward him.
“I left it on the kitchen counter.”
Aaron nodded.
“That part’s true.”
Daniel placed it back on the desk.
“What happened between you?”
Rebecca’s posture changed.
Some of her anger left, replaced by something tired.
“Aaron gambled.”
Daniel looked at his brother.
Aaron said nothing.
Rebecca continued.
“He gambled money we did not have. He lied about it. He used my card once after I froze his. He borrowed from his mother without telling me.”
Daniel already knew about the money from Carol.
He had not known Rebecca had been there.
“Aaron?”
His brother rubbed the back of his neck.
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Does it matter?”
“To me.”
“About thirty-eight thousand by the time everything stopped.”
Daniel stared at him.
Aaron looked embarrassed rather than defensive.
“I was bad.”
Rebecca laughed again, but this time there was anger in it.
“You were terrifying.”
Aaron looked at her.
“I never hit you.”
“I didn’t say you did.”
Daniel watched them.
Rebecca’s fingers shook in her lap.
“You punched a cabinet beside my head because I changed the password to the checking account.”
Aaron looked toward the bookcase.
“Yes.”
“You followed me from room to room for two hours asking where I had moved the money.”
“Yes.”
“You threatened to kill yourself if I left.”
Aaron swallowed.
“Yes.”
Daniel felt his certainty rearrange itself.
Not disappear.
Rearrange.
He leaned against the desk.
“Is that why you left?”
Rebecca nodded.
“I packed while he was at work.”
Aaron’s voice was low.
“I came home and she was gone.”
“And the divorce?”
“I hired a lawyer. I filed. He didn’t respond to some things. The case stalled. I didn’t have money to keep paying. Then it was dismissed.”
“You knew.”
Rebecca met Daniel’s eyes.
“Yes.”
There it was.
Not a legal argument.
Not a technicality.
Yes.
Daniel looked at the photograph again.
Rebecca at twenty-four. Aaron at thirty. Both laughing outside a courthouse.
“How did you meet me?”
She seemed confused by the change.
“You know how.”
“Say it.”
“At the preservation fundraiser.”
“Did you know who I was?”
“No.”
“When did you know Aaron was my brother?”
Another pause.
“Four months after we started dating.”
Daniel felt the room tilt in a way the chapel had not managed.
“You knew for fourteen months.”
May you like
“I didn’t know how to tell you.”
“You knew the first time you met Lily.”
