“Yes.”
“Are you going to answer?”
I looked at my son.
Then at Anna.
Then at the envelope.
“No.”
I silenced the call.
It rang again less than a minute later.
Then again.
On the fourth attempt, a message appeared.
Catherine, call me.
Please.
The word please almost made me laugh.
Not because it was funny.
Because I could not remember the last time Derek had used that word with me when he wanted something.
Another message followed.
There’s a problem with Allison.
I stared at it for a long moment.
Then I typed one sentence.
I’m with your children.
Nothing else.
His reply came immediately.
I need to explain.
I put the phone away.
For eight years Derek had believed explanations were something I owed him and something he could give whenever consequences became inconvenient.
That morning, I had finally stopped participating.
At the airport, the driver unloaded our bags.
I kept the envelope with me.
Inside was the financial record that mattered far more to my future than whatever disaster was unfolding between Derek and Allison.
The affair had hurt me.
The money could hurt my children.
That was the line Derek never understood.
Three months earlier, when I first noticed irregular transfers, I had started saving copies.
Derek had moved funds through accounts I recognized and others I did not.
Payments connected to the Upper East Side apartment appeared among them.
So did emails discussing deposits and timing.
He apparently believed that because our marriage was ending, the movement of money no longer mattered.
But the chronology mattered.
The disclosures mattered.
And the fact that some of the money had entered our marriage through my family mattered.
I had already made sure the records would be reviewed properly.
Signing papers that morning had not magically erased undisclosed financial conduct.
Derek realized that after he left the clinic.
He called again.
This time I answered.
I said nothing first.
Neither did he.
Finally he asked, “Where are you?”
“You know where I’m going.”
“Catherine, we need to talk before you leave.”
“About Allison?”
A pause.
“How do you know something happened?”
“Jason told me the scan started.
Your six missed calls told me the rest.”
He exhaled.
