Chương 2
At the first traffic light, Claire realized she had no coat, no overnight bag, and no idea whether the credit card in her wallet still worked.
She laughed once.
The sound came out wrong.
The driver beside her glanced over.
Claire lowered her face and waited for the light to change.
She called Nora Bell from the parking lot of a pharmacy eight miles away.
Nora answered with noise behind her—silverware, children, somebody asking where the cranberry sauce had gone.
“Happy Thanksgiving,” Nora said. “Unless this is about the office printer, in which case it can die alone.”
Claire looked through the windshield at a row of shopping carts chained together beneath fluorescent lights.
“Daniel asked me for a divorce.”
The noise behind Nora seemed to move farther away.
“What?”
“At the table. In front of everyone.”
There was a pause. Nora’s voice changed.
“Where are you?”
“Outside a pharmacy.”
“Which pharmacy?”
Claire told her.
“I’m coming.”
“No. You have people there.”
“I have my brother-in-law explaining cryptocurrency to my mother. I’m looking for an excuse to leave.”
“Nora.”
“Stay in the car.”
“I’m not a child.”
“Then act like an adult and stay in the car.”
The call ended.
Claire bought a toothbrush, deodorant, a gray sweatshirt, a packet of aspirin, and a cheap black coat with a broken zipper pull. The young cashier wore glitter beneath both eyes and had the exhausted patience of someone six hours into a holiday shift.
“Do you want a bag?”
“Yes.”
The cashier began placing the items into plastic.
“No,” Claire said. “Sorry. I have one.”
She did not have one.
The cashier waited.
“A bag is fine.”
Outside, Claire sat in the car again and stared at the receipt. She folded it into smaller and smaller squares until Nora pulled into the space beside her in a dented blue Subaru.
Nora got out wearing velvet pants, running shoes, and a winter coat over what appeared to be a pajama top. At forty-one, she had the restless energy of somebody who never fully sat in a chair. Her dark blond hair had been secured with a child’s purple barrette.
She opened Claire’s passenger door.
“Move over.”
“You’re not driving my car.”
“You’ve been crying.”
“I haven’t.”
“That’s worse. Move.”
Claire let Nora drive.
They went to Nora’s house, where Nora’s extended family responded to Claire’s arrival with an awkward tenderness that almost undid her. Nora’s mother kissed Claire’s cheek without asking questions. Her brother-in-law moved his coat from a chair. Two children were sent upstairs after staring too openly.
No one said Happy Thanksgiving.
No one asked why she had arrived without Daniel.
Nora put a plate in front of her. Turkey, stuffing, green beans, a spoonful of cranberry sauce still shaped like the can.
Claire looked at it.
“I cooked for nine hours.”
“I know.”
“There are three pies cooling on Eleanor’s laundry-room counter.”
“Don’t think about the pies.”
“The pumpkin one cracks if the oven temperature changes too quickly.”
Nora took the plate away.
They sat at the far end of the dining table while the rest of the family drifted into the living room. Nora placed a mug of tea between them.
“What exactly did he say?”
Claire repeated it.
Nora closed her eyes for a second.
“He said younger?”
“Yes.”
“Not that he was in love. Not that the marriage was over. Younger.”
“Yes.”
“What a catastrophic idiot.”
Claire put both hands around the mug, though she did not drink.
“They knew.”
“Who?”
“His family. All of them.”
Nora’s face tightened.
“Daniel told them?”
“Eleanor said several weeks.”
“Did they know about the affair or the divorce?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did anyone come after you?”
“No.”
The answer made Nora sit back.
Claire stared at the surface of the tea. A thin skin had begun to form around the edges.
Her phone vibrated continuously in her purse.
“Turn it off,” Nora said.
“I should know what he’s saying.”
“No, you should preserve what he’s saying.”
Nora was not a divorce attorney. She handled contracts and insurance disputes for a midsized firm in Hartford, which meant she knew enough law to distrust confident people who claimed they knew the law.
She held out her hand.
Claire gave her the phone.
There were twelve missed calls from Daniel, three from Eleanor, one from Daniel’s sister, and several text messages.
Daniel: Where are you?
Daniel: This is exactly why I didn’t want to do this today.
Daniel: You embarrassed everyone.
Daniel: Come back. We need to talk rationally.
Eleanor: Please answer Daniel.
Eleanor: Your behavior has made an already difficult situation much worse.
Daniel: Dad nearly fell trying to carve the turkey.
Nora read the last message twice.
“His father nearly fell because Daniel asked a seventy-three-year-old man with a bad hip to carve a turkey?”
Claire looked away.
Nora took screenshots, emailed them to an address Claire rarely used, and switched the phone to airplane mode.
“What money can you access?”
Claire blinked.
“What?”
“Checking accounts. Savings. Credit cards. Business accounts.”
“I don’t know.”
“You do the books for Mercer Development.”
“I supervise financial reporting. The controller does the books.”
“Your name is on anything?”
“The operating account. Two credit lines. The equipment lease.”
“Personal guarantees?”
Claire’s grip tightened around the mug.
“One.”
“For how much?”
“Eight hundred thousand.”
Nora stared at her.
“It was supposed to be temporary. Daniel’s father had the stroke, the lender wanted continuity, and Daniel said—”
“How much cash do you personally have?”
“About eighteen thousand in savings. Maybe twenty.”
“Is it separate?”
“Yes. It was from selling my mother’s house.”
“And the house you live in?”
“Joint title.”
“Mortgage?”
“Joint.”
“Retirement?”
“Mine is mine. His is—Daniel has a plan through the company.”
Nora leaned forward.
May you like
“Tomorrow morning, you call a family-law attorney. Not me. Somebody who does this every day. You also call the company’s accountant and ask for copies of anything carrying your signature or guarantee.”
“I can’t raid the company because my husband is having an affair.”
