Chapter 3
When Daniel came home, I put my phone in front of him and asked him to choose: the office, the job site, or the hotel.
He stopped halfway through taking off his coat.
“What are you talking about?”
“Last Wednesday, you said you were sleeping at the office. When I brought you dinner, no one was there. Then you said you had been called to the job site. Now this charge says you were meeting an investor at the Bellweather.”
I opened the $1,284 charge and turned the screen toward him.
Daniel barely glanced at it.
“The meeting started at the hotel. The Bradley people wanted to see the job site, so we moved.”
“Why did the hotel still charge over a thousand dollars?”
“We reserved a meeting room with a minimum charge. It was nonrefundable.”
“Was Celeste there?”
“She prepared the design proposal. Of course she was.”
“You needed a hotel room to discuss a design proposal?”
He set his water glass down hard.
“If you have an accusation to make, make it.”
“What exactly is your relationship with Celeste?”
His exhaustion gave way to irritation.
“She’s helping me keep the company alive. You found one hotel charge, and now you’re treating her like my mistress.”
“I didn’t call her your mistress. I asked you a question.”
“This feels like an interrogation.”
He kept using that word.
Whenever I asked for a clear answer, Daniel called it an interrogation. It made him the victim and me the one doing something wrong.
“I’m not signing anything involving the lake house until I see the company’s books.”
Daniel gave a short laugh.
“You wouldn’t understand them.”
“I handled the books for the first eight years.”
“That was eight years ago. The company is more complicated now.”
I hadn’t left because I was bad at my job.
When Daniel’s mother was diagnosed with cancer, someone had to take her to chemotherapy. Daniel said the company couldn’t function without him, and Grace was still in elementary school. For three years, I moved between the hospital, the school, and the office.
After his mother died, Daniel had already hired someone else. He said there was no reason for me to return.
Now he talked about those eight years as if I had done nothing but file receipts.
“Then explain it to me,” I said. “Show me how much cash is left, what the clients owe, and how short you’ll be on next month’s payroll. If the numbers support what you’re saying, I’ll consider the house.”
“Consider it?”
“Yes.”
Daniel gripped the back of a dining chair.
“Last night, you said we were in this together. Today you find one hotel charge, and suddenly you have conditions.”
“I pawned my mother’s watch.”
“Sixty-four hundred dollars won’t save the company.”
“Then you should be able to tell me where the money from the house would go.”
His phone rang.
Daniel checked the screen and answered in a gentler voice. “Hi, sweetheart.”
For half a second, I thought it was Celeste.
Then Grace’s voice came through. She asked how our anniversary dinner had gone and said she might not come home from college that weekend because of a group project.
Daniel looked directly at me and turned on the speaker.
“Dinner was fine until your mother decided she wasn’t sure this family was worth saving.”
“Take her off speaker,” I said.
“Grace is nineteen. She has a right to know what’s happening.”
There was a pause on the line.
“Dad, I was only calling to ask about dinner.”
“Now you know.”
“I should go.”
Grace ended the call.
Daniel slipped the phone back into his pocket. “Satisfied?”
“You wanted her to hear that.”
“I’m not going to cover for you.”
He took the red folder into his office and shut the door.
I went upstairs and opened my laptop.
The password to the company account had already been changed. I could still access our household accounts and shared credit cards, so I downloaded every statement available. I saved one copy on the computer and another in a private email account.
Then I opened a checking account at a different bank.
It required a minimum deposit. I transferred twelve hundred dollars from our joint account—the money I had earned over three months at the community nonprofit.
My finger hovered over the confirmation button.
Daniel would receive an alert.
I clicked Confirm.
Less than ten seconds later, the bedroom door opened.
Daniel stood in the doorway, holding up his phone. The transfer was displayed on the screen.
“You’re hiding money from me?”
I closed the laptop.
“I’m making sure I can still buy groceries.”
He stared at me, then took his car keys from the hook beside the door.
“If you’re already preparing to leave,” he said, “I don’t need to keep a place for you.”