Chapter 4: The Lawyer's Name
My friend's name was Carol.
I had known her for eleven years, since we worked together at a small insurance office before I married Daniel and he decided my working was unnecessary.
She had never once asked me why I stopped calling as often.
She had simply left the door open.
She drove me to her house without asking where I wanted to go.
I sat in the passenger seat with my phone in both hands and Dr.
Webb still on speaker, the heater running, the fields outside gray and flat under a low sky.
"I need you to write down everything he told you," Carol said to the phone.
"Every detail.
Date, time, what she said, what she looked like.
Can you do that?"
"Already done," Dr.
Webb said.
"I wrote it the same night.
I have it dated and signed."
"Good.
Don't send it anywhere yet.
Keep it somewhere safe."
"Carol," I said.
"I know.
I'm thinking."
She pulled into her driveway and turned off the engine.
Neither of us moved.
"He said he was smiling," I said.
"I know."
"Daniel doesn't smile when he's scared.
He smiles when he thinks he's already won."
Carol looked at me.
"Who would he call?"
I thought about it.
The answer came quickly and sat heavy.
"His uncle," I said.
"Gerald."
Carol was quiet for a moment.
"The one who's a solicitor?"
"The one who handled our prenuptial agreement."
She got out of the car.
I followed her inside.
Her kitchen smelled like coffee and old wood and nothing like bleach.
She put the kettle on without asking and I sat at her table and looked at my wrists and thought about the prenuptial agreement I had signed three years ago in a room with Gerald and Daniel and a notary I had never met before and never saw again.
Daniel had told me it was standard.
Protective.
For both of us.
I had believed him.
"Carol," I said.
"I never read it."
She set a mug in front of me.
"All of it?"
"I read the first page.
Daniel explained the rest.
Gerald said it was routine."
Carol sat down across from me.
She didn't say anything for a moment.
"Do you have a copy?"
"Daniel kept the original.
I was given a copy but I don't know where it is.
He handles all the paperwork."
"He handles all the paperwork," she repeated.
"Yes."
She looked at her hands around her mug.
Then she looked up.
"I need to make a call," she said.
"A friend of mine.
She's a family solicitor.
She's good and she owes me a favor and she will see you today if I ask."
"I can't pay her.
Daniel controls the accounts."
"I know.
I'll handle that for now." She was already reaching for her phone.
"Her name is Diane.
She's going to want to see your wrists."
I looked down at the purple marks.
They had deepened since morning.
"Good," I said.
Carol dialed.
While it rang, she reached across the table and covered my hand with hers.
Just for a second.
Just long enough.
Diane answered on the third ring.
"I need you to see someone today," Carol said.
"It's urgent.
She's pregnant, she got out this morning, and her husband just called his solicitor uncle the moment she walked out the door."
A pause on the line.
"How far along?" Diane asked.
"Seven months."
Another pause.
Shorter.
"Bring her in at two," Diane said.
Carol ended the call and looked at me.
"Two o'clock," she said.
I nodded.
I picked up the mug.
My hands had almost stopped shaking.
Then my phone buzzed on the table.
A text from Daniel.
*You made a scene in front of my colleagues.
You embarrassed this family.
Come home and we can talk about this like adults.
If you don't come home by noon, I'll have no choice but to speak to Gerald about the agreement.*
Carol read it over my shoulder.
"He's threatening you with the prenup," she said.
"Yes."
"Before you've even seen a solicitor."
"Yes."
She set her mug down carefully.
"He's not scared," she said.
"He's certain.
He thinks whatever is in that agreement protects him completely."
I looked at the text again.
*I'll have no choice but to speak to Gerald about the agreement.*
He had already spoken to Gerald.
He had called him from the dining room while I was walking out the door.
Which meant Gerald had already been waiting for this call.
Which meant this had been planned before this morning.
I put the phone face-down on the table.
"Carol," I said.
"The prenup wasn't routine."
She looked at me steadily.
May you like
"No," she said.
"I don't think it was."
