Chapter 5: What Serena Knew
I stared at the screen for a long time.
Elaine came to stand beside me.
She read the message without touching the phone.
"She has your number," she said.
"Apparently."
"Are you going to answer?"
I set the phone face-down on the counter.
"Not tonight."
But I didn't sleep.
Elaine made up the guest room for herself without being asked, and I lay in the bedroom I had shared with Donald for seven years and looked at the ceiling and thought about fourteen months.
I counted backward.
Fourteen months ago I had been planning a weekend trip we never took.
I had been making dinners he said were fine.
I had been asking him why he seemed distant and accepting *work stress* as a complete answer.
Fourteen months.
In the morning, Donald's car was not in the driveway.
Elaine made coffee.
She didn't ask me how I slept.
She put a cup in front of me and sat down and that was enough.
"I want to know everything you know," I said.
"I'll tell you what I can."
"Did you meet her?"
"No.
I only have the name and the card."
"Did he say anything else in that phone call?
Anything about the marriage, about money, about — anything?"
Elaine wrapped both hands around her mug.
"He said he had been putting money aside.
Separately.
He said he wanted to be prepared in case things went a certain direction."
I put my cup down.
"A separate account."
"He didn't use those words.
But that's what he meant."
I thought about our joint account.
The way I had never questioned the balance because Donald handled the finances.
The way he had insisted on that from the beginning — *you're better with the house stuff, I'm better with the numbers, it just makes sense.*
"I need to call my bank," I said.
"Yes," Elaine said.
"You do."
I called from the kitchen table with Elaine sitting across from me.
The representative confirmed our joint account balance, which was lower than I expected but not alarming on its own.
Then I asked whether there had been any regular transfers out of the account in the past eighteen months.
There had been.
Automatic transfers.
Monthly.
To an external account not linked to my name.
The representative gave me the total.
Forty-two thousand dollars.
I kept my voice level.
I thanked her and ended the call.
Elaine was watching me.
"He's been moving money," I said.
She closed her eyes for a moment.
"How much?"
I told her.
She set her mug down very carefully, the way people do when they need their hands to be doing something controlled.
"You need a lawyer," she said.
"Today.
Not next week."
"I know."
"I'll pay for it."
"Elaine—"
"I will pay for it," she said again.
"He is my son and I love him and what he has done to you is not something I will pretend away." Her voice didn't break.
It just went very quiet and very certain.
"Let me do this."
My phone buzzed again.
Same unknown number.
*I know about the account.
I know about all of it.
I'm not his ally.
Please call me.*
May you like
I looked at the message for a long time.
Then I picked up the phone and dialed.
