Chapter 8
He began crying.
I had seen Caleb cry only a handful of times.
At Sophie's birth.
At his mother's funeral.
When our dog died.
Once, after a terrible argument early in our marriage.
For fourteen years, his tears had been enough to make me reach for him.
This time, I stayed where I was.
He whispered, “I made a terrible mistake.”
I shook my head.
“A mistake is forgetting our anniversary. A mistake is missing a payment. You made hundreds of decisions over eleven months, and every one of them required you to lie to me.”
He covered his face.
“I'll sell the cabin.”
“You can discuss that with the attorneys.”
His hands dropped.
“What?”
I opened the drawer beside our bed.
Took out an envelope.
And handed it to him.
He looked at the first page.
Then the second.
Then back at me.
“Divorce?”
“Yes.”
“Claire, you can't be serious.”
“I am.”
He stood so quickly the envelope slipped from his hands.
“You're throwing away fourteen years?”
I felt the familiar urge to defend myself.
To explain.
To convince him.
Then I remembered the kitchen.
The fireplace.
The weekends.
The numbers he had corrected because he couldn't bear not knowing what I knew.
I met his eyes.
“No, Caleb. I'm refusing to throw away the next fourteen.”
The divorce was not quick.
Caleb initially insisted that the cabin had nothing to do with our marriage.
Then the financial records became impossible to ignore.
Daniel hired his own attorney.
Laura stopped speaking to Caleb.
And the property arrangement, which Caleb had described as a simple investment, became a complicated problem for three people who had expected me never to examine it.
Through our attorneys, Caleb eventually agreed to a settlement that accounted for the marital money spent on the cabin arrangement.
He also agreed to disclose the remaining financial records and divide our marital assets under the negotiated terms.
I didn't get everything I wanted.
Neither did he.
But the agreement protected my financial future and provided a workable parenting arrangement for Sophie.
The day we signed, Caleb looked exhausted.
He had lost weight.
His expensive watch hung loosely around his wrist.
When we stepped outside the attorney's office, he asked whether we could talk.
I agreed.
We stood beneath a gray October sky.
He stared at the parking lot.
“I keep thinking about the night you mentioned the cabin.”