Chapter 5: The Woman Who Also Didn't Know
Renee was younger than me by about six years.
She had dark hair pulled back and the kind of face that looked like it had been pretty before it got tired.
She sat at my kitchen table — Marcus's kitchen table — and held her mug the same way I had held mine, two hands, like it was the only solid thing available.
Daniel was with her mother, she said.
He didn't know she was here.
"He knows about you," she said.
"Not your name.
But he knows his father has a wife.
Marcus told him last year.
He said—" She stopped.
"He told Daniel it was complicated."
"He told you the same thing," I said.
"Yes."
"How long did you believe him?"
She looked into her mug.
"Longer than I should have.
Six years, maybe.
I kept thinking he would choose.
I kept thinking there would be a moment where he made a decision and everything would become clear." She looked up.
"That moment never came."
"When did you stop believing him?"
"Eight months ago.
I found a receipt in his jacket.
A restaurant.
A date night, the kind we used to have.
Except I hadn't been with him that night." She set her mug down.
"I asked him about it.
He said it was a work dinner.
I knew it wasn't.
But I didn't know who it was with."
I felt something cold move through me.
"Eight months ago."
"Yes."
"We went to my sister's anniversary dinner eight months ago.
He said it was the only night he had free that month."
Renee looked at me steadily.
Neither of us said anything.
Carol, sitting at the end of the table, put her mug down very quietly.
"He's been running two lives," Renee said.
"I think I knew that for a long time.
But knowing it and being willing to see it clearly are different things when there's a child involved." Her jaw tightened.
"Daniel loves him.
That's the part I can't — that's what makes this so difficult.
My son loves his father."
"I understand," I said.
And I did, in a way I hadn't expected to.
"There's something else," Renee said.
She reached into her bag and placed a folded piece of paper on the table.
"I found this three weeks ago.
In the storage unit.
I have a key — Marcus gave it to me years ago so I could store Daniel's things there when our apartment got small." She pushed the paper toward me.
"I don't think he knows I found it."
I unfolded it.
It was a document.
Two pages, printed, with a law firm's letterhead at the top.
I read the first paragraph.
Then I read it again.
"This is a property deed," I said.
"Keep reading," Renee said.
I turned to the second page.
My name was on it.
My name, and Marcus's name, on a property I had never heard of.
A house, purchased four years ago, in a town two hours from here.
"I've never seen this," I said.
"I know," Renee said.
"I looked it up.
The property is in both your names.
But the mortgage payments come from an account I've never had access to.
An account that isn't the one he uses with me, and I'm guessing it isn't the one he uses with you."
Carol leaned forward.
"A third account."
"That's what I think," Renee said.
"Which means there's money somewhere that neither of us knows about."
I folded the document carefully and set it on the table in front of me.
"Grace Whitfield," I said to Carol.
"I'll call her right now," Carol said, and stood up.
Renee watched her go.
Then she looked back at me.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"I know that doesn't fix anything."
"No," I said.
"But I'm glad you came."
Outside, a car turned into the street.
Its headlights swept across the kitchen window.
Renee saw it first.
May you like
Her face changed.
"That's his car," she said.
