Chapter 5: Diane
She replied the next morning.
I had spent the night at Dana's apartment, still in my wedding dress until about midnight when Dana finally convinced me to change into borrowed pajamas.
I hadn't slept.
I had lain on her couch and stared at the ceiling and listened to the city outside and tried to build a version of the past fourteen months that made sense.
I couldn't.
At 7:43 a.m., my phone buzzed.
The email was short.
*I've been waiting for something like this for a long time.
I can talk today.
Are you able to come to Columbus?*
I showed Dana.
"Today?" she said.
"That's what she said."
Dana looked at me for a long moment.
Then she stood up and went to find her car keys.
We drove three hours with the windows down and the radio off.
I spent most of it looking at the photograph in my lap.
By the time we pulled into the hospital parking garage, I had memorized every detail of it.
The yellow flowers.
Connor's hand.
The way Diane was looking at the camera like she had no idea what was coming.
She met us in the hospital lobby on her lunch break.
She was smaller than I expected — shorter, quieter.
She wore her dark hair longer now than in the photograph.
She looked at me carefully when we shook hands, the way you look at someone you've been trying to picture for a long time.
"You're the one he was going to marry," she said.
"Yes."
"I'm sorry about your wedding."
"I'm sorry about yours," I said.
Something shifted in her face.
She gestured toward a small seating area near the far wall, away from the main corridor, and we sat down.
"How much do you know?" she asked.
"I know you're still legally married to him.
I know he filed for divorce three months ago.
I know he never told me you existed."
She nodded slowly.
"He told me about you.
Eventually." She folded her hands in her lap.
"He called me last February.
Said he had met someone serious and that he wanted to finally sort things out properly.
That was the first time we had spoken in almost two years."
"Two years," I repeated.
"We separated in 2019.
He moved out.
I assumed we would divorce.
But he never filed.
Every time I brought it up, he had a reason to delay.
His job was stressful.
He was adjusting to co-parenting Lily.
He needed more time." Her voice was even, practiced.
Like she had told this story before, at least to herself.
"After a while, I stopped asking.
I told myself it didn't matter since we weren't together.
I dated other people.
I built a life here."
"Did you know he had a daughter?
Before you married him?"
"Lily was two when we got married.
I knew about her.
I met her a few times." She paused.
"Rachel and Connor had only been separated about a year when Connor and I got together.
It was fast.
Too fast, looking back."
I looked down at my hands.
No ring now.
Just the faint line where it had been.
"He told me last night there are things about you I don't know," I said.
"Things that would change how I see all of this."
Diane's expression didn't flicker.
"He said that?"
"Yes.
In a text."
She was quiet for a moment.
Then she reached into her jacket pocket and set a folded piece of paper on the table between us.
"He's been trying to get me to sign a post-nuptial agreement for the last three months," she said.
"Since he filed.
His lawyer sent it to my lawyer.
It's designed to limit what I'm entitled to in the divorce — specifically, it would remove my claim to a property he purchased in 2020."
I stared at the paper.
"A property."
"A house.
About forty minutes from where you live, actually." She met my eyes.
"Did he ever mention owning a second property?"
The coffee I had drunk in the car turned cold in my stomach.
"No," I said.
"He never mentioned that."
"I didn't think so." She tapped the folded paper gently.
"The things he wants you to believe about me — I suspect they're connected to that house.
He needs me to sign this agreement before the divorce is finalized.
If I don't, I'm entitled to half its value."
Dana, who had been silent beside me the whole time, leaned forward.
"How much is it worth?"
Diane looked at her steadily.
"His lawyer's last offer to make me go away was $180,000."
The lobby hummed around us.
Somewhere down the corridor, an elevator opened and closed.
I thought about the text.
*There are things about Diane you don't know.
Things that will change how you see all of this.*
May you like
He hadn't been warning me about a dangerous woman.
He had been trying to stop me from finding one.
