Chapter 8: Friday Lunch
I didn't follow him.
I want to be clear about that too.
I'm not someone who follows people.
I'm someone who thinks carefully and then acts, and what I did on Friday was think carefully.
I called Renee.
I told her about the calendar notification — the initials, the hotel, the location field that should have been blank.
"What do you want to do?" she asked.
"I want documentation," I said.
"Not for a dramatic confrontation.
For myself.
So that when I have this conversation with Carter, I'm not standing there with a feeling.
I'm standing there with a fact."
"My brother-in-law mentioned a name," Renee said.
"An investigator he's used for cases.
She's discreet.
Very professional."
"Can you get me her number?"
Renee texted it within the hour.
Her name was Gail Forsythe.
I called her that morning while Carter was getting the older children ready for school.
She asked me four questions, took the hotel name and the time window, and said she'd be in touch.
Carter left at eleven-thirty.
Kissed my cheek.
Said he had a lunch meeting and would be back by three.
"Enjoy it," I said.
He did not look guilty.
He looked like a man who had been managing something for a long time and had gotten very good at it.
Gail called me at two forty-five.
"I have what you need," she said.
"Photographs.
Timestamped.
Them arriving together, in the restaurant, leaving together.
Enough."
I was sitting in the garden.
The baby was asleep in the pram beside me.
The afternoon was warm.
"Thank you," I said.
"She'll email everything within the hour.
Do you need anything else from me?"
"Not right now."
I sat in the garden until Carter's car pulled into the driveway at three-fifteen.
I heard him come through the house, heard him call my name, heard the back door open.
He stepped out into the garden and smiled when he saw me.
"There you are," he said.
"Good afternoon?"
"Very," I said.
"You?"
"Productive." He crouched down and looked at the sleeping baby.
"He's grown so much."
"He has."
Carter sat in the garden chair beside me.
He was relaxed.
Easy.
The same man who had stood at the kitchen sink with me a week ago, drying dishes, almost normal.
"I've been thinking," he said.
"About what you said — about being aligned.
I want us to go away.
Just the two of us.
My mother could take the kids for a long weekend.
We could go somewhere nice."
I looked at him.
"Carter," I said.
"Yeah?"
"I know about Diane."
The garden was very quiet.
The baby slept on.
Carter's face didn't collapse.
It went careful.
"Nora—"
"I know about the hotel.
I know about today.
I have documentation." I kept my voice completely level.
"I'm not saying this to start a fight.
I'm saying it so we can stop pretending."
He was quiet for a long moment.
A muscle worked in his jaw.
"How long?" he said finally.
"How long have I known, or how long has it been going on?"
He didn't answer.
Which was its own answer.
"I need you to be honest with me now," I said.
"Not managed.
Not handled.
Honest.
Because what happens next depends entirely on whether you can do that."
He put his elbows on his knees and looked at the ground.
"Eight months," he said.
The baby made a small sound in his sleep and settled again.
Eight months.
Our youngest was nine months old.
I didn't say anything.
I let the number sit in the air between us.
"I'm sorry," Carter said.
And for the first time in this entire conversation, he actually sounded like he meant it.
May you like
"I know," I said.
"But sorry isn't a plan."
