Chapter 10: Two Women at a Corner Table
We met at a coffee shop twelve blocks from my house.
Far enough from the neighborhood that no one would recognize either of us.
Close enough that I could walk there and clear my head on the way.
Diane was already seated when I arrived.
Corner table.
Back to the wall.
The instinct of someone who had learned to be careful.
She looked like Grant around the eyes.
Carol had been right about that.
It was disorienting in a way I hadn't prepared for — sitting across from a stranger who wore my husband's face in miniature.
"Thank you for coming," I said.
"Thank you for calling me," she said.
"Directly.
Without him in the middle."
I ordered coffee.
She was already halfway through hers.
"I'm going to show you something," I said.
"And I need you to tell me honestly if you recognize it."
I slid a printed page across the table.
Patricia had sent it that morning.
The formation document for Meridian Property Holdings LLC, with the Chicago address circled.
Diane looked at it.
Her expression didn't change for a moment.
Then something shifted in her eyes.
"That address," she said.
"You recognize it."
"It's my mother's address." She looked up.
"That's the building where my mother lived.
Apartment 4C.
She lived there for eleven years." She looked back at the page.
"What is this?"
"A company registered in your father's name," I said.
"Indirectly.
Through a nominee.
Two hundred and thirty thousand dollars passed through it over fourteen months."
Diane set down her coffee cup.
"He told me the money he sent was personal," she said.
"That it was going directly to me.
To help with my mother's bills."
"Some of it did," I said.
"The first transfer, the one you asked for — that appears to be straightforward.
But the subsequent transfers, the ones you refused, didn't go to your account." I tapped the page.
"They went here."
She stared at the document.
"My mother's address," she said again.
"Diane.
I need to ask you something and I need you to think carefully before you answer." I kept my voice level.
"Did your mother have any financial relationship with Grant?
Before she passed.
Any arrangement, any agreement, any account he may have had access to or contributed to?"
Diane was very still.
"She never talked about him," she said slowly.
"For my whole life, she almost never mentioned him.
But—" She stopped.
"But."
"When she was sick.
Near the end." She looked at the table.
"She said something I didn't understand at the time.
She said, 'He's been taking care of it for years.
You don't need to worry.' I thought she meant — I thought she meant emotionally.
That she'd made peace with the situation.
With him not being around." She looked up.
"I didn't think she meant money."
"Did she have significant savings?
For someone who had been dealing with medical bills?"
Diane's jaw tightened slowly.
"Her estate was larger than I expected," she said quietly.
"I didn't question it.
I thought she'd been careful.
She was always careful." A pause.
"Are you telling me he had been sending her money?
For years?"
"I don't know yet," I said.
"My investigator is pulling records.
But the address on that company matches her apartment.
And the transfers began the same month she passed."
Diane looked at the page for a long time.
"He didn't start sending money because she died," she said slowly.
"He stopped sending it somewhere and rerouted it." She looked up.
"He'd been supporting her.
And when she was gone, the money needed somewhere new to go."
"That's what I think," I said.
"He was never going to tell me," she said.
"About any of it.
He was going to manage it.
Keep managing it.
Keep all of us in separate rooms."
"Yes," I said.
She picked up her coffee cup.
Set it down without drinking.
"What do you need from me?" she said.
"Your texts.
The ones where you refused the transfers.
And anything your mother may have left — documents, letters, bank records, anything that shows a prior financial relationship with Grant." I held her gaze.
"I'm not trying to hurt you.
You didn't do anything wrong.
But if there's fraud here, the documentation has to be complete."
Diane nodded once.
Precise.
Decided.
"I have a box," she said.
"From my mother's apartment.
I haven't gone through all of it.
I didn't have the heart." She looked at me steadily.
"I'll go through it tonight."
"Thank you," I said.
She looked at me for a moment.
"You're very calm," she said.
"I don't know how you're this calm."
"I'm not calm," I said.
"I'm just finished being surprised."
She almost smiled.
It was a sad expression.
It looked like Grant's, and it didn't.
I paid for both coffees.
We walked out in different directions.
That evening, Diane called me.
"I found something," she said.
"In the box."
"What is it?"
"Letters," she said.
"From Grant.
Going back nineteen years." A pause.
"Nora.
He knew about me before you were married.
He knew my mother was pregnant.
He chose not to tell you."
The street outside my window was quiet and ordinary.
"Send me photos of the letters," I said.
"Already sending," she said.
May you like
I watched them arrive, one by one, on my phone screen.
Nineteen years of a secret, in Grant's own handwriting.
