Chapter 6: The Folder
I came downstairs with Thaddeus still in my arms.
Conrad was standing at the kitchen table.
Beside the insurance document, he had placed a second sheet of paper.
It was handwritten.
I recognized Alaric's writing immediately — the slightly backward lean of his letters, the way he pressed too hard with a pen.
"This was folded inside the back cover of the folder," Conrad said.
"Behind the cardboard."
I looked at Alaric.
He had come to the kitchen doorway.
His face had gone the color of old paper.
"What is it?" I asked.
Conrad answered.
"It's a letter.
Addressed to you.
Dated the day before your scheduled discharge from the hospital."
I shifted Thaddeus to my left arm and picked up the letter.
*Nevaeh,*
*By the time you read this, I'll have already spoken to you in person.
But I wanted you to have this in writing so there's no confusion later.*
*I know this isn't what either of us planned.
But the life we built together stopped being real a long time ago.
You were so focused on having a baby that you stopped seeing me.
I tried to tell you.
You never heard me.*
*The children will be loved and well cared for.
I'm not a cruel man.
But I can't keep pretending that our marriage is something it hasn't been for years.*
*I hope eventually you'll understand.*
*— Alaric*
I read it twice.
Then I set it down.
"He was going to leave this for me to find," I said.
"After I was already out of the house."
"That's how it reads," Conrad said.
"So I wouldn't make a scene.
I'd just come home, find the letter, and accept it."
Petra made a sound I had never heard from her before.
Low and furious.
I looked at Alaric.
"You stopped seeing me.
That's what you wrote."
He said nothing.
"I had four surgeries, Alaric.
Four.
I injected myself every morning for months.
I bled and I grieved and I got back up and tried again.
And you were with someone else the entire time, and you wrote that *I* stopped seeing *you*."
"It's more complicated than—"
"Don't." Petra's voice cut across the room.
"Don't say it's complicated.
You had a document drawn up to take her children.
You forged a waiver inside a hospital form.
You wrote a letter designed to make her feel like she was the one who failed." She stepped forward.
"That's not complicated.
That's calculated."
Alaric's jaw tightened.
"You don't know everything about our marriage."
"I know my sister," Petra said.
"I know what those years cost her.
And I know you were in that waiting room holding her hand while you were sleeping with someone else." She stopped two feet from him.
"So don't talk to me about complicated."
Conrad put his hand on Petra's arm.
Not to stop her.
Just to anchor her.
"Alaric," Conrad said, "I'm going to need you to contact your attorney tonight.
Not tomorrow.
Tonight.
Because what I'm looking at on this table is a pattern of deliberate legal deception, and the sooner your attorney understands the full picture, the better for everyone."
"You're not my lawyer."
"No.
I'm hers." Conrad picked up the letter and the insurance document.
"And first thing tomorrow morning, I'm filing to have that waiver voided on the grounds of fraudulent inducement.
I'm also requesting a full accounting of any other documents prepared or signed in the last six months." He looked at Alaric steadily.
"If there's anything else in this house that affects Nevaeh's rights, I'd strongly suggest you tell me now."
Alaric looked at me.
For a moment, just a moment, something passed across his face.
Not the cold calculation I had seen all evening.
Something older.
Something that might have been the man I married, surfacing briefly before it went back under.
"There's a second document," he said.
"At my office.
In my desk."
The kitchen went silent.
Thaddeus stirred against my shoulder.
"What does it say?" I asked.
May you like
Alaric closed his eyes.
"It transfers the house."
