Chapter 3
She flipped to the last page of her expense notebook and drew a huge chart with a red pen. On the left she wrote, What I've Lost. On the right, What I Know.
She decided that starting tomorrow, she would fill the right side completely.
For the next three days, Charlotte shut herself inside and checked the accounts day and night.
She pulled out every record from the last three years: bank statements, credit card bills, WhatsApp transfer logs, payment app statements. She cross-checked them one by one, recorded them one by one, and built the whole thing into a spreadsheet.
She found a lot.
Edward had changed cars last year. The down payment had been 93,000 dollars, and the monthly payment was 2,700 dollars. She had no idea. He had told her it was a company car.
Last October, Edward went to Sunbay Resort. Flights, hotel, and spending came to over 13,000 dollars. She had no idea. He had told her the company was doing closed-door training that week.
Edward had bought that woman a lot of things: bags, shoes, jewelry, skincare. Judging from the records, he'd been keeping her for at least a year.
And during that same year, the line he said to Charlotte most often was, "The company's not doing well. Spend less."
She organized all the numbers and made two separate sheets.
The first one: Annual Household Spending.
Edward Lane's personal spending, including affair-related expenses: about 93,000 dollars.
Household expenses, including support payments to Mrs. Nolan: about 27,000 dollars.
Charlotte Nolan's personal spending, including groceries and transportation: about 4,000 dollars.
The second one: Edward Lane's transfer records to Mrs. Nolan.
Starting two years ago, he had sent 2,000 dollars on the fifteenth of every month for twenty-four straight months, totaling 48,000 dollars.
The note was always the same three words: Support payment.
Charlotte stared at those three words for a long time.
Support payment.
The money Charlotte gave her mother was marked as help with expenses. The money Edward gave her mother was marked support payment. Suddenly, something clicked.
She picked up her phone and called her mother.
"Mom, let me ask you something. You know about the 2,000 dollars Edward sends you every month, right?"
There was a three-second silence on the other end.
Then her mother's voice came through, thick with guilt. "You... how did you find out?"
"I saw the bank statements."
"Why were you looking at that?" her mother snapped, suddenly raising her voice. "Trust is the most important thing in a marriage. What kind of wife digs through her husband's finances?"
Charlotte ignored that and asked instead, "Why is he sending you money?"
"That's... that's because he's thoughtful. A son-in-law taking care of his mother-in-law is perfectly normal."
"Then why didn't you tell me?"
"Would telling you have changed anything? You don't even work. He's the one carrying the whole family. Whether he gives me money or not is his business. Do I have to report every little thing to you?"
Charlotte closed her eyes for a second. She had heard enough hidden meaning in that one answer.
"Mom," she said evenly, "did you already know he had someone else?"
Silence again.
This time, it lasted much longer.
"Charlotte," her mother finally said, her tone changing. The guilt was gone, replaced by this fake, earnest advice. "Men are like that. They go out, they socialize, things happen. You need to learn to look the other way. Just take care of the home, and once he's done playing around, he'll come back on his own. If you make a fuss, you'll only push him farther away."
Charlotte's hand shook around the phone.
"So you knew," she said.
"Of course I knew. I'm not an idiot," her mother shot back, almost sounding self-righteous. "You think that money came for free? If I took his money, then of course I had to speak for him. That's how the world works. Everybody looks out for themselves."
Charlotte closed her eyes.
She remembered every call from her mother, every time she had said, "Be good to Edward," or "He works so hard, don't make trouble for him," or "A woman needs to know her place."
Charlotte had thought her mother was trying to protect her marriage.
Now she knew the truth. That 2,000 dollars a month was the price her mother got paid to keep Charlotte obedient.
"Mom," she said softly, her voice suddenly light, "when you took that money, did you ever think about me?"
Her mother paused, then said something Charlotte would never forget for the rest of her life. "What's there to think about? You're living off him anyway. What more do you want?"
Charlotte didn't say another word.
She hung up.
The phone screen went dark, reflecting her own face back at her. Red eyes. Cracked lips. She looked like a lamp about to burn out.
She stared at that face for a long time.
Then she reopened the spreadsheet and added a new title line at the very top:
Marriage Balance Sheet: Charlotte Nolan
Assets: none.
Liabilities: three years of youth, a body full of exhaustion, and a heart full of scars.
She saved the file, backed up all the evidence to cloud storage, then picked up her phone and dialed a number.
"Hello, is this Attorney Carter? I'd like to ask about divorce."
The divorce lawyer was highly professional. After reviewing everything Charlotte had provided, he said one thing: "Your case is strong. The evidence is solid, and your odds are good. The only wildcard is your family's position."
Charlotte knew exactly what he meant. Her mother.
That 2,000 dollars Edward sent her mother every month wasn't just a number. It was a rope. One end was tied to her mother, and the other to Charlotte. As long as the rope stayed uncut, her mother would keep dragging her back with everything she had.
So before filing the lawsuit, Charlotte decided she needed to make a clean break with her mother first.
She asked her mother and brother to meet her at a coffee shop downtown.