Chapter 9: The Last Conversation
Carol's expression when she read the email was the calmest and most serious I had ever seen it.
She read it twice.
Set it down.
Looked at me.
"He was planning to transfer assets before filing."
"Yes."
"That's not just an affair, Rachel.
If he moved marital funds into a private account in preparation for divorce proceedings, that's financial concealment.
That's a different category of problem for him entirely."
"What do I do?"
"You let me do my job." She picked up the email again.
"I'm going to need a forensic accountant.
We're going to need full disclosure of every account he holds, joint or otherwise.
And I'm going to need you to not say a word to Andrew about any of this until I tell you to."
"He's been texting me."
"Text him back.
Keep it neutral.
You're thinking.
You need more time.
Nothing about lawyers, nothing about accounts, nothing about Diane."
I nodded.
"Can you do that?"
"Yes."
She held my gaze for a moment.
"You're handling this remarkably well."
"I'm not, actually.
I'm just handling it."
She almost smiled.
"That's the same thing."
The next ten days were the strangest of my life.
Andrew came back to the house twice, both times with my permission, both times with Nicole present.
He was careful and quiet and apologetic in the way that people are when they are frightened.
I watched him and thought about the email and said nothing.
Nicole knew something was happening.
She didn't ask.
She stayed close to me in the evenings, sitting in the kitchen while I cooked, watching television in the same room.
She didn't push.
She was just there.
On the eleventh day, Carol called.
"We found the account."
I sat down.
"How much?"
"Just over forty thousand dollars.
Moved in increments over twenty-two months.
Small enough amounts that they wouldn't trigger automatic flags."
Twenty-two months.
He had been planning this for nearly two years.
"What happens now?"
"Now I send a letter to his attorney.
We have documentation of the concealment.
That changes the entire negotiation."
"Does he know we found it?"
"He will by end of day."
I sat in the spare room with the phone in my hand after she hung up.
An hour later, Andrew called.
I answered.
"Rachel." His voice was different.
Tight in a way I hadn't heard before.
"I need to talk to you."
"I think you need to talk to your lawyer."
"Rachel—"
"Andrew." I kept my voice level.
"I know about the account.
Carol knows about the account.
We have the documentation.
Whatever you were planning to say to me right now, say it to your attorney instead."
A long silence.
"I never wanted it to go this way."
"I know.
You wanted it to go the way you planned.
Month by month.
On your timeline." I stood up and walked to the window.
"That's not how it went."
"I'm sorry."
"I know you are.
I believe that you are." I watched a bird land on the fence outside and then fly off again.
"But sorry doesn't change what you built behind my back for two years.
It doesn't change the money.
It doesn't change Nicole in that hallway.
It doesn't change any of it."
He was quiet for a moment.
"What do you want?"
"I want what's fair.
I want Nicole protected.
And I want this done without a war."
"Okay."
"That means full disclosure.
Everything.
No more surprises."
"Okay," he said again.
Quieter.
"Tell your attorney to call Carol."
I hung up.
May you like
I stood at the window for a while.
Then I went downstairs and started making dinner, and when Nicole came home twenty minutes later and dropped her bag in the hallway and said "something smells good," I said "sit down, I'll tell you everything," and she did, and I did, and somewhere in the middle of it she reached across the table and held my hand, and neither of us said anything for a moment, and that was enough.
