Chapter 2 - HE SIGNED THE LEASE BEFORE NELL WAS BORN
The lease application had a timestamp.
I had missed it the first time.
Elise saw it.
Her eyes narrowed.
“Marina.”
“What?”
She pointed.
Submitted:
Twelve days before Nell was born.
My stomach dropped.
Adam saw us notice.
“Listen.”
“No.”
“You need context.”
“Then provide some.”
Savannah had been separating from her boyfriend.
Not husband.
Boyfriend.
Apparently the relationship was “toxic.”
Adam had helped her find somewhere safe.
I stared at him.
“Before I gave birth?”
“Yes.”
“You were apartment hunting with Savannah while I was thirty-eight weeks pregnant?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Were you sleeping with her?”
Silence.
I already knew.
Still, hearing silence hurt differently.
“Adam.”
“Yes.”
One word.
Six years of marriage reduced to one word.
Elise walked out of the room before she said something she could not take back.
I stayed.
“Since when?”
“Marina—”
“Since when?”
He looked down.
“About four months.”
Four months.
I remembered being thirty-four weeks pregnant.
Struggling to roll out of bed.
Adam telling me he had late client dinners.
“Did it start before the apartment?”
“Yes.”
“Did she know I was pregnant?”
His silence answered.
“Did she know you were married?”
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
He immediately said:
“I’m not blaming you.”
I actually laughed.
“Thank you for your generosity.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you tell her?”
His face tightened.
“About us.”
“Yes.”
“That we were struggling.”
“We weren’t.”
“We were.”
I stared.
“You were sleeping with someone else. Apparently you were struggling privately.”
He looked ashamed.
Then he said:
“I felt like everything became about the baby.”
My chest went cold.
“Nell?”
“No. That sounds terrible.”
“It sounds accurate.”
He rubbed his face.
“I felt like I disappeared.”
I looked down at the child he had missed twenty days of.
“You disappeared very effectively.”
He whispered:
“I know.”
Then I showed him another document.
Bank transfer.
$18,500.
From our emergency savings.
To:
SABLE NORTH LLC.
Adam stared.
“That has nothing to do with the affair.”
“What is Sable North?”
He hesitated.
Too long.
I already knew the registered owner.
Savannah Cole.
Adam finally said:
“It’s her company.”
I felt my pulse in my ears.
“You transferred almost nineteen thousand dollars of our money to your girlfriend’s company?”
“It was an investment.”
“Did I agree?”
“No.”
“At least we found one answer you can give quickly.”
Then he said:
“I was going to replace it.”
“How?”
He looked away.
I knew immediately.
“There’s more money somewhere.”
No answer.
I opened my folder.
“Where?”
Adam whispered:
“My bonus.”
“What bonus?”
He had received an annual performance bonus three weeks before Nell was born.
$62,000.
May you like
He never told me.
And according to the deposit record I had found that morning, most of it had never entered our joint account.
Related Stories
