Chapter 2 - HE NEVER TRIED TO STOP MEI drove twenty-seven miles before realizing where I was going.
Dana Brooks lived in Laguna Beach.
We had been friends since college, before she became a divorce attorney and before I became stupid enough to believe knowing a divorce attorney personally would somehow vaccinate my marriage against needing one.
She opened the door in sweatpants.
Took one look at me.
“What happened?”
“Mason kissed someone.”
She stared.
“Come inside.”
“She was sixty-six.”
“Do we care?”
“No.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I know.”
Dana poured water instead of wine.
That annoyed me.
“I brought wine.”
“You’re in shock.”
“I’m not twelve.”
“No. You’re a client-shaped object currently carrying a handbag.”
I almost laughed.
Almost.
I told her everything.
The kiss.
His silence.
The slap.
The ring.
Dana did not interrupt until I finished.
Then she asked:
“Did he follow you?”
“No.”
“Call?”
I checked.
Nothing.
“No.”
“Text?”
“No.”
“Where are you?”
I looked around.
“In your kitchen.”
“Emotionally, Claire.”
“Humiliated.”
“Angry?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want a divorce?”
The question hit harder than the kiss.
“I don’t know.”
“Good.”
I stared.
“Good?”
“You’re not supposed to know in the first hour.”
Dana pulled out a yellow legal pad.
I groaned.
“Please don’t turn my marriage into office supplies.”
“I’m not. I’m stopping you from doing anything expensive while furious.”
She wrote:
HOUSE.
ACCOUNTS.
BUSINESS INTERESTS.
INSURANCE.
Then looked up.
“Any reason Mason would expect you home early?”
“No.”
I stopped.
Maybe.
My meeting had been canceled.
I texted Mason around three.
Heading home early.
Had he responded?
I checked.
No.
But it showed delivered.
“He knew.”
Dana noticed my face.
“What?”
“I told him.”
“When?”
“Forty-five minutes before I got there.”
“And he still kissed her in the living room?”
I stared.
There were bedrooms upstairs.
A guesthouse.
Hotels.
He chose the center of our home.
A room visible directly from the front entrance.
Dana said nothing.
She didn’t have to.
I whispered:
“He wanted me to see it.”
“Maybe.”
“Why?”
“We don’t know.”
“He didn’t even try to stop me leaving.”
Dana leaned back.
“That part bothers me too.”
I began listing Mason’s normal behavior.
He hated unfinished arguments.
If I left a room angry, he followed.
If we fought before work, he called at lunch.
Once, after a ridiculous argument about his mother visiting for Thanksgiving, he drove to my office just to say:
“I refuse to spend eight hours imagining what you think I meant.”
That was Mason.
Except today.
Today he let me walk.
“He wanted me gone,” I said.
Dana asked quietly:
“From the marriage?”
“I don’t know.”
That became the first honest answer of the night.
At nine, Mason finally texted.
Not:
I’m sorry.
Not:
Please come home.
One sentence.
Stay somewhere else tonight.
I showed Dana.
Her face hardened.
“That’s unusual.”
I called him.
Straight to voicemail.
Again.
Same.
I typed:
Who is she?
No answer.
How long?
Nothing.
Do you love her?
Nothing.
Then one final message.
I’ll have someone bring you anything you need from the house.
I threw my phone onto the couch.
Dana picked it up before I could throw it farther.
“He is creating separation.”
“Clearly.”
“No.”
Her voice changed.
“I mean literally.”
“What?”
“He isn’t asking for space. He is making sure you don’t go back to the house.”
The sentence sat between us.
I thought about the woman again.
Her face.
The discomfort.
The way she did not touch Mason after I appeared.
The way she seemed almost relieved when I left.
“Maybe he thinks I’ll kill him.”
“You slapped him once.”
“I know.”
“Don’t joke.”
“I’m not.”
Dana became very still.
“Claire, did Mason ever ask you to sign anything recently?”
“Financially?”
“Anything.”
I thought.
“No.”
Then remembered.
“Actually, he asked me yesterday where the original documents for my father’s trust were.”
Dana looked up.
“Why?”
“He said our accountant needed beneficiary information.”
“Did you give them?”
“No. They’re in a safe-deposit box.”
Dana picked up her legal pad again.
This time I did not complain.
“Tomorrow,” she said, “we start with money.”
I stared at her.
“My husband kisses another woman and you want bank statements.”
“I want to know whether the kiss is the problem.”
“What else could it be?”
May you like
Dana looked at me.
“Something designed to make sure you’re too hurt to ask the right question.”
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