Chapter 4: The Records She Kept
I didn't sleep.
Ethan and I sat at the kitchen table in our own house after we got home, Sophie asleep upstairs, and he spread David Holt's folder between us like a map of a country neither of us had known existed.
The complaint was forty-one pages.
Forty-one pages of dates, descriptions, photographs, and handwritten notes in Margaret's careful script.
A silver bracelet, allegedly missing after my visit in March two years ago.
A set of cufflinks belonging to Ethan's father, allegedly last seen before Christmas the year before that.
Three hundred dollars in cash that Margaret claimed she'd left in an envelope in her kitchen drawer.
Every entry had a date.
Every date had my name attached to it.
"She's been doing this for two years," I said.
Ethan turned a page.
"Longer.
Look at the first entry."
I looked.
The first entry was dated fourteen months before Sophie was born.
"She started before Sophie," I said.
"She started before we were married." He set the page down.
"This entry is from the week after I told her I was proposing to you."
I stared at the date.
Then at his face.
"Ethan.
Did you know any of this was happening?"
"No." He said it immediately.
No hesitation, no pause.
"No.
I knew she didn't — I knew she had opinions about us.
About you.
I thought it was the usual.
I thought she'd come around."
"She was building a legal case against me while I was planning our wedding."
He put his hand over mine on the table.
"I know."
"That's not opinions, Ethan.
That's not a mother-in-law who's difficult at holidays.
She was going to use this to take Sophie."
"I know."
"And she had a lawyer."
"I know." His voice broke slightly on the second word.
He pressed his thumb against the back of my hand.
"I'm sorry.
I don't know what else to say right now.
I'm sorry."
I pulled my hand back.
Not in anger.
I just needed it.
"We need to know what's actually missing," I said.
"If anything.
We need to know if she planted anything or if she just fabricated the whole list."
"David said the same thing.
He wants to meet tomorrow morning."
"Good."
I turned to the section on the cufflinks.
There was a photograph.
The cufflinks were in a small velvet box, photographed on what looked like Margaret's dresser.
The timestamp on the photo was from three years ago.
"These cufflinks," I said.
"Where are they now?"
Ethan was quiet for a moment.
"In my dresser drawer," he said.
"I took them after Dad died.
Margaret gave them to me.
She was there when she gave them to me."
I looked at him.
"She gave you your father's cufflinks," I said, "and then documented them as stolen by me."
He stood up from the table.
He walked to the window and stood with his back to me, one hand on the frame.
"She gave them to me," he said again, quieter.
Like he was testing whether the sentence still made sense.
"Ethan.
She built this whole thing knowing she could contradict it herself if she wanted to.
She wasn't afraid of being caught.
She was counting on the fact that no one would ever look closely enough to check."
He turned around.
"Because she thought I'd go along with it."
"Yes."
He came back to the table.
He sat down.
He looked at the folder for a long moment without touching it.
"There's something else," he said.
"Something I haven't told you yet."
I waited.
"Three weeks ago, Margaret called me at work.
She said she needed to talk to me about something serious.
About you.
I told her I didn't want to hear it.
She said—" He stopped.
Pressed his fingers against his mouth for a moment.
"She said she had proof that you'd been planning to leave me.
That you'd been talking to someone.
That you had money hidden somewhere."
"None of that is true."
"I know.
I told her I didn't believe her.
She said I was blind.
She said she was going to show me whether I wanted to see it or not." He looked at me.
"I thought she was just — I thought it was her usual.
I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to feel like you had to defend yourself against something that wasn't real."
"But it was real," I said.
"It was already in motion."
"Yes."
I closed the folder.
"She was going to do this with or without your cooperation," I said.
"She just preferred to have it."
He nodded.
"And the lawyer — David — he came tonight because you called him?"
"I called him this afternoon.
Before dinner.
After she called me again and said tonight was the night she was going to handle things.
I didn't know exactly what she meant.
But I called David and told him to come if I texted him." He looked at his hands.
"I texted him from the kitchen while you were doing the dishes."
The dishes.
Twelve dirty plates and a glass I'd been drying when she grabbed my hair.
"You knew something was going to happen tonight," I said.
"I knew she was going to try something.
I didn't know what.
I didn't know about the complaint.
I didn't know about the draft message." He met my eyes.
"I swear to you, Emily.
I didn't know about any of that."
I believed him.
I wasn't sure yet if that was enough.
"Get some sleep," I said.
"We have a meeting in the morning."
I picked up the folder and carried it to the bedroom.
I set it on my nightstand.
I lay down without changing clothes and stared at the ceiling until the room started to go gray with early light.
My phone buzzed at 5:47 a.m.
May you like
A text from a number I didn't recognize.
*You should ask your husband what he signed in February.*
