Chapter 7: What He Tried Next
Ethan called at two-seventeen in the afternoon.
I was home by then.
I had stopped at the pharmacy, filled the prescription the hospital had given me, and come back to the house that had always been mine and sat down on the couch with a glass of water and my phone on the cushion beside me.
The house was quiet.
Diane had taken her overnight bag when she left the previous evening.
The kitchen was clean.
The pot roast was still in the refrigerator, untouched.
I let Ethan's two-seventeen call go to voicemail.
He left one.
"Ava.
I know you filed a response.
Jonathan's office called Cassandra this morning." A pause.
His voice had changed from the night before — the warmth was gone, replaced by something tighter.
"I want you to understand something.
I'm not trying to take your house.
I never was.
But you've made this adversarial now, and I need you to know that if this goes to court, things are going to come out that are going to be embarrassing for both of us.
I have emails.
I have conversations.
Things you said about my mother, about our marriage, about how you felt.
I don't want to use them.
But I will if I have to.
Call me back."
I played it twice.
Then I forwarded it to Jonathan with a single line: *He's threatening to use private communications as leverage.*
Jonathan replied in four minutes: *Save everything.
Do not respond.
This is good for us.*
I set the phone down.
He called again at three-forty.
I didn't answer.
At four-fifteen, the doorbell rang.
I looked through the front window before I opened it.
Diane.
She was standing on the front step with her handbag held in front of her with both hands, the way she held it at church.
She was not wearing the expression she usually wore at my door — the one that said she was tolerating the entrance to a house she considered more hers than mine.
She looked tired.
Older than she had yesterday.
I opened the door.
"I'm not here to cause trouble," she said immediately.
"All right."
"May I come in?"
I stepped back.
She came in and stood in the foyer and looked around the house the way you look at something you thought you understood and are now seeing differently.
"He called me this morning," she said.
"After you filed the papers.
He was angry.
He said you were being vindictive.
He said you were trying to destroy him."
"I filed a legal response to a petition he filed against me," I said.
"In my own house."
"I know." She set her handbag on the foyer table — something she had never done before, always carrying it through the house like a shield.
"He also told me something else.
He said the apartment in Charlotte was just for work.
That he needed a base there because of client meetings."
"Do you believe that?"
She was quiet for a moment.
"No," she said.
"I don't think I do."
She looked at me.
"I owe you an apology," she said.
"A real one.
Not the half-thing I said on the phone this morning." She stopped.
Started again.
"I made your life very difficult.
I told myself it was because I was protecting my son.
But I think — I think I also just didn't want to see what I was seeing.
It was easier to be angry at you."
The room was very quiet.
"He fed you things to be angry about," I said.
"Yes.
But I chose to eat them." She met my eyes.
"I'm sorry, Ava.
For the blanket.
For all of it.
For three years of all of it."
I looked at her for a long moment.
She didn't look away.
"I hear you," I said.
It was not forgiveness, not yet, but it was something true.
"Thank you for saying it."
She nodded once.
Then she reached into her handbag and pulled out a folded piece of paper.
"This was in the folder he left on my kitchen table.
I don't think he realized I took it." She held it out.
"I don't know if it matters.
But I thought you should have it."
I unfolded it.
It was a printed email chain.
Between Ethan and Cassandra Foyle.
The most recent message was dated three days ago, the day before he left for Hilton Head.
In it, Ethan wrote: *If the petition doesn't work, we go to plan B.
She won't fight a drawn-out process.
She hates conflict.
She'll settle just to make it stop.*
Cassandra's reply: *Agreed.
But we need to move before she lawyers up properly.
Once Reed gets involved, it gets complicated.*
I read it twice.
He had known about Jonathan.
He had been racing against the clock.
And he had been counting on me being too conflict-averse to fight back.
My phone buzzed on the couch.
A text from Jonathan: *Court confirmed receipt of our response.
Judge has scheduled a preliminary hearing for next Wednesday.
Also — I need you to call me when you have a moment.
There's a development.*
I looked up at Diane.
"Can you stay for a few minutes?" I said.
She blinked.
"Yes.
Of course."
I called Jonathan.
He answered immediately.
"The Charlotte apartment," he said.
"I had Patricia do a deeper search.
The lease was in Ethan's name, but Cassandra Foyle was listed as a co-occupant.
They've been living together, Ava.
On and off, for at least two years."
Diane was watching my face.
I kept my voice even.
"Two years," I said.
"Yes.
Which means this wasn't an affair that complicated a marriage.
The marriage was the complication."
I lowered the phone.
Diane had heard enough of it.
I could see it in her face — the way the last piece of something falls into place and the picture becomes something you can't un-see.
"Two years," she said.
"Yes."
She sat down on the foyer bench.
Slowly, like her legs had decided without consulting her.
"He used both of us," she said.
May you like
"Yes," I said.
"He did."
