Chapter 7
Then she added, “There's another issue.”
I waited.
“Caleb transferred thirty-two thousand dollars from your joint savings account last year. The destination was an account associated with Daniel.”
I remembered that transfer.
Caleb had told me it was a short-term investment in a supplier business.
I had asked whether it was safe.
He had kissed my forehead and said, “Trust me.”
Thirty-two thousand dollars.
Plus sixteen thousand six hundred and fifty in monthly payments.
Forty-eight thousand six hundred and fifty dollars.
Money from the life we had built together.
Rebecca said, “We need to establish exactly where it went and what interest, if any, Caleb acquired. Don't confront him about the legal details until we've organized the records.”
I agreed.
Then I asked her to prepare divorce paperwork.
She was quiet for a moment.
“Are you certain?”
I looked at the photograph of Sophie on my desk.
“Yes.”
And I was.
Caleb noticed the change before he understood it.
I stopped crying in front of him.
Stopped asking where he had been.
Stopped trying to interpret his moods.
I was polite.
Civil.
Distant.
And it terrified him.
One evening, he came into our bedroom while I was folding laundry.
“Claire, I think we should try counseling.”
I looked up.
“Why?”
He frowned.
“Because I want to save our marriage.”
“Since when?”
He stared at me.
“What does that mean?”
I folded a towel.
“Did you want to save it when you bought the Christmas tree for the cabin?”
His face drained.
I continued.
“Or when you told Laura we were separated?”
He opened his mouth.
“Or when you told her you were going to explain everything to Sophie after her birthday?”
“Claire—”
“Which part of our marriage were you trying to save, Caleb?”
He sat heavily on the bed.
For the first time, he didn't have an immediate answer.
Then he whispered, “You talked to her.”
“Yes.”
He looked genuinely wounded.
“You went behind my back.”
I stopped folding.
I looked at the man I had loved since I was twenty-six.
And I said, “You built an entire second life behind mine.”
He lowered his head.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then he tried one final defense.
“I never stopped loving you.”
I believed that he believed it.
And somehow that made it worse.
“Maybe you didn't,” I said. “But you stopped treating me like someone whose life mattered as much as yours.”