Chapter 4: The Man Who Needed His Family More Than His Wife
Patricia Wren's office was on the fourth floor of a building downtown, with a waiting room that smelled like fresh coffee and said nothing on its walls except the firm's name in small silver letters.
She was fifty, precise, and she listened without writing anything down for the first ten minutes.
Then she picked up her pen and did not put it down again.
"Walk me through the financial structure of your marriage," she said.
I did.
The studio income.
The joint account.
The transfers.
David's estimates.
The eighteen months of statements I had been quietly collecting.
Patricia set her pen flat on the desk.
"Your husband is aware that you have a separate business account?"
"He knew the account existed.
He didn't know the balance or the activity."
"And the account he's been transferring to — you have no knowledge of it?"
"None."
"Do you have any reason to believe he has a separate financial relationship with another person?
A family member, or otherwise?"
I thought about Vanessa.
About the way she had known about my account before Nathan had told her.
About the years of borrowed money that had never been repaid.
About the refrigerator, the website, the redesigned dining room.
"His sister," I said.
"Vanessa."
Patricia made a note.
"Has money moved between your household and his sister's household before?"
"Regularly.
Always framed as temporary.
Never repaid."
"Do you have records?"
"Some.
My accountant has more."
"Get me everything." She folded her hands.
"Emily, I want to be direct with you.
What you're describing — the transfers, the family financial pattern, the fact that his sister had knowledge of your private account — suggests your husband may have been sharing financial information about your marriage with a third party for some time."
"I know."
"That changes the nature of the divorce filing considerably."
The word divorce sat between us on the desk like something that had always been there.
"He's going to fight for the house," I said.
"What is the ownership structure?"
"My name.
I purchased it before we married.
I've maintained the mortgage from studio income throughout."
Patricia almost smiled.
"Then he has very little to fight with." She picked up her pen again.
"I'd like to file a motion for temporary financial orders this week.
That freezes the joint account and stops any further transfers while we establish the full picture."
"He'll know immediately."
"Yes."
"He'll call Vanessa."
"Almost certainly."
"And Vanessa will tell him to fight."
Patricia looked at me steadily.
"Ms.
Cole.
In my experience, the people who tell others to fight are rarely the ones who end up paying the cost." She closed her notepad.
"Let them strategize.
We'll be in court before they finish their first phone call."
I drove back to my mother's house with the retainer agreement signed and a copy of the financial freeze motion already filed electronically.
Nathan called at four-seventeen.
"My attorney says you've frozen our accounts."
"My attorney filed a motion, yes."
"You did this on purpose.
You planned all of this."
"Nathan.
You've been transferring money out of our joint account for nearly two years."
Silence.
"That money was for a project."
"What project?"
Another silence.
Longer this time.
"It's not what you think."
"Then tell me what it is."
"I can't.
Not yet."
I looked out the window at my mother's front yard.
Owen had left his sneakers on the porch steps again.
One of them had fallen sideways into the grass.
"Nathan," I said, "you have been moving money from an account that I fund, to an account I don't recognize, for twenty-two months.
Your sister knew about my private business account before you told her.
And when your sister sl\*pped me in my own home, you told me not to make it worse." I paused.
"I need you to understand something.
I am not making it worse.
I am simply stopping pretending it isn't happening."
He was quiet for a long time.
Then: "My mother is going to lose everything if this goes to court."
That was when I understood.
May you like
The money had not been going to a project.
It had been going to Judith.
