Chapter 3: The Woman Who Knew Everything
I didn't speak for a long moment.
"How do you know my name?" I finally said.
"Because he talks about you," Abigail said.
"He talks about you the way people talk about furniture.
Something that's always there.
Something that doesn't need to be considered."
The kitchen felt very small suddenly.
"Where are you?" I asked.
"Forty minutes from you.
I've known about you for two years.
I kept telling myself it wasn't my place to call." A pause.
"Then I saw the news alert this morning.
The lottery winner in Claremont.
I recognised the ticket retailer.
Douglas buys his tickets there every week.
I thought — if he finds out before you're protected, Gwen, he will take everything."
My grip tightened on the phone.
"He doesn't know I won."
"Then you have time.
But not much." Her voice dropped.
"He's being discharged tomorrow.
I heard him on the phone this afternoon telling someone the plan."
"What plan?"
"He's going to come home and tell you the business owes two hundred thousand dollars.
He has documents ready.
Fabricated ones.
He's going to ask you to sign a joint asset declaration so the creditors can't touch the business property." She stopped.
"Gwen.
If you sign that, everything you own becomes accessible.
Everything."
I looked at the lottery ticket on the table.
"He doesn't know about the win," I said again.
More to myself than to her.
"No.
But someone at the lottery office might.
Those things leak." Her voice was careful and steady, the voice of someone who had already been through the worst of it and come out the other side.
"You need a lawyer tonight.
Not tomorrow.
Tonight."
"I already called one," I said.
"This afternoon.
Before I came home."
A silence.
"Good," Abigail said softly.
"That's good."
I pulled the notebook toward me.
The three questions I had written were still there, unanswered.
"The child," I said.
"Tell me about the child."
Another silence, longer this time.
"His name is Caleb," she said.
"He turned three in March.
Douglas was there for the birthday.
He told you he was at a supplier conference in Portland."
I remembered that weekend.
I had been working a double shift at the clinic.
I had sent Douglas a photo of my lunch break coffee and written *Miss you* underneath it.
He had replied with a single thumbs-up.
"Does he love the boy?" I asked.
The question surprised even me.
But I needed to know what kind of man I had actually married.
"He loves having him," Abigail said carefully.
"That's not the same thing.
He's never paid a single bill for Caleb voluntarily.
Everything I have came from fighting him for it.
He told me last year that if I ever contacted you, he would make sure I lost custody."
The pen in my hand went still.
"He threatened you with your own son."
"Yes."
I set the pen down.
"Abigail.
I want to meet you."
She didn't answer immediately.
"I know how that sounds," I said.
"But I'm not calling to confront you.
You didn't make vows to me.
He did." I looked at the lottery ticket one more time.
"And right now you're the only person who knows what he's actually capable of.
I need that.
My lawyer needs that."
The line was quiet for a long moment.
"There's a diner on Mercer Street," she said.
"The one with the blue awning.
Can you be there at eight tomorrow morning?
Before he gets discharged?"
"Yes."
"Come alone."
"I will."
After I hung up, I sat at the kitchen table until the room went fully dark around me.
I didn't turn on the lights.
I just sat there with the lottery ticket and the notebook and twenty-nine years of a marriage I was only now beginning to actually see.
My phone lit up again.
Douglas this time.
*Still stuck in traffic?
I'm starving.
Can you bring something when you come?*
May you like
I turned the screen face-down on the table.
Then I picked up my lawyer's card and dialled again.
