“You followed them?”
“I hired someone after Jessica started lying badly.”
I almost smiled at the phrase.
“Mark lied very well.”
“He probably still thinks he does.”
I pushed the photographs away.
“And the baby?”
For the first time, James looked wounded rather than controlled.
“I learned about the pregnancy three days ago.”
“You know it’s Mark’s?”
“Jessica told someone she trusted.
That person decided I deserved to know.”
He paused.
“I haven’t confronted her.”
I thought of Mark in the sunroom.
No, James doesn’t know.
Mark had sounded so sure.
He believed James was ignorant.
He believed I was ignorant.
For one more night, both assumptions could remain useful.
I looked at the envelope.
“Why two hundred thousand?”
James folded his hands.
“Because if you discover your husband has been moving marital money and you leave immediately, you need somewhere safe to go and enough independence not to be pressured back.”
“That sounds like buying cooperation.”
“It is buying time,” he said.
“But not your silence.
Keep the money or don’t.
Give it back tomorrow if you want.
I needed you to understand I wasn’t asking you to stay because it was convenient for me.”
“What exactly are you asking?”
“Go back tomorrow.
Let Mark believe you heard enough to be upset but not enough to understand what he’s doing.
Don’t sign anything.
Don’t authorize anything.
Copy everything you legally have access to.”
“And then?”
“Then we compare what you have with what I have.”
I stood and walked to the sink.
Outside, snow had begun falling.
Ten years with Mark told me what tomorrow would look like if I returned.
He would apologize selectively.
He would explain strategically.
He would admit only what he believed I already knew.
And if he thought I might forgive him, he would relax.
That realization settled something inside me.
“I’m not taking your money,” I said.
James nodded as though he expected that.
“But I’ll give you time.”
He slid the envelope back into his coat.
“Then we need to make sure Mark believes you came home because you still want the marriage.”
I looked at the wedding ring on the table.
For the first time that night, I understood that putting it back on did not have to mean surrender.
It could mean camouflage.
I slipped it onto my finger.
James closed his folder.
