Chapter 6: The Morning After
Zoe left with Ruth just after eight.
She had her backpack and her stuffed rabbit and she held my hand all the way to Ruth's car.
At the door she turned and hugged me around the middle, her face pressed into my side.
"You'll call me tomorrow?" she asked.
"First thing," I said.
"I promise."
She got in.
Ruth gave me a look over the roof of the car — steady, no words needed — and then they were gone.
I went back inside.
Diana was in the bedroom.
The door was closed.
I could hear her moving around, the soft sounds of drawers opening and closing.
I sat at the kitchen table and didn't sleep.
By six in the morning I had read Zoe's list eleven times.
I had also found something else — something I hadn't been looking for.
I had gone to the filing cabinet in the office to find Zoe's pediatric records, thinking about the marks on her wrists, thinking about whether I needed to make a call.
The records were in the second drawer, where they had always been.
But in front of them was a folder I didn't recognize.
It had my name on it.
Not a label.
Handwritten.
My full name, in Diana's handwriting.
Inside were printed emails.
Twelve of them.
All between Diana and a man named Patrick Hale.
The earliest was dated four months after our wedding.
The most recent was three weeks ago.
I read them slowly.
They were not friendly emails.
By the time Diana came into the kitchen at seven-thirty, I had made coffee, washed the mug, and was sitting at the table with the folder in front of me.
She saw it the moment she walked in.
She stopped in the doorway.
"Where did you find that?"
"Filing cabinet.
In front of Zoe's medical records."
She didn't move.
"That's private."
"It has my name on it."
"Tom—"
"Sit down, Diana."
She sat.
Slowly.
Her eyes stayed on the folder.
"Patrick Hale," I said.
"He's your ex.
From before we met."
She said nothing.
"These go back ten months." I kept my voice even.
"The first one is dated four months after our wedding."
"It's not what it looks like."
"He calls you by a nickname I've never heard.
You sign off the same way."
"We're old friends.
That's all."
"In the email from August, he asks when you're going to stop pretending." I looked up at her.
"You tell him soon."
Diana's hands were flat on the table.
"In the email from three weeks ago," I said, "he asks how the situation at home is going.
You say, and I'm reading this directly — *the kid is more useful than I expected.
Keeps him guilty and distracted.*"
The kitchen was completely silent.
"The kid," I said.
"That's Zoe."
Diana's mouth opened.
Closed.
"You used my daughter," I said.
"You gave her chores she couldn't manage.
You kept her exhausted and quiet.
And when I was worried about her, you used that worry to keep me from looking at anything else."
"That is not—"
"The folder has my name on it, Diana.
Why does a folder of your private emails have my name on it?"
She looked at the table.
"Were you planning to use them?" I asked.
"For something?"
She didn't answer.
"I need you to leave," I said.
Her head came up.
"Today," I said.
"I'll arrange for you to come back for your things when Zoe isn't here.
But I need you out of this house today."
"You can't just—"
"I can." I stood up.
"And I am."
Diana stood too.
Her composure was gone now, fully and completely, and what was underneath it was not what I expected.
It wasn't guilt.
It wasn't regret.
It was anger.
"You think this is simple," she said.
"You think you found a folder and now you understand everything.
You don't understand anything."
"I understand enough."
"Patrick and I are none of your business—"
"You made my daughter your business," I said.
"That made everything else mine."
She grabbed her phone off the counter.
"I'm calling my lawyer," she said.
"That's your right," I said.
"Mine is already on the calendar for nine o'clock."
She stared at me.
"I didn't sleep last night," I said.
"I made good use of the time."
Diana walked out of the kitchen.
I heard the bedroom door.
Then, twenty minutes later, the front door.
I sat back down at the table.
The folder was still in front of me.
I closed it and set it aside.
Then I picked up my phone and called Ruth.
"She's gone," I said.
"Good," Ruth said.
"Zoe's eating waffles.
She asked for strawberry."
Something in my chest loosened by a fraction.
"Tell her I'll be there by noon," I said.
"She'll be glad to hear it." A pause.
"Tom.
Are you okay?"
I looked at the empty kitchen.
The refrigerator where the list used to go.
May you like
The counter where Diana had stood with her arms folded.
"I will be," I said.
