Caleb muttered:
“Oh my God.”
Vanessa looked at me again.
“I didn’t know.”
I believed that she had not known everything.
That did not make her innocent.
But it did mean Adrian had built different realities for both of us.
I opened the front door.
Behind me, Adrian said:
“Claire, if you walk out right now, you’re making this much worse.”
I turned.
“No.”
“You did that before you came through the dining room.”
Then I left.
What Adrian did not know was that I was not taking the children for ice cream.
We were not coming back that night.
And the overnight bags in the trunk of my car had been there for nine days.
Six weeks earlier, Adrian had told me I had nowhere to go.
That was the moment I stopped arguing with him.
We had been in the kitchen.
He was checking something on his phone.
I had asked why a transfer I expected from our household investment account had disappeared.
Not spent.
Moved.
Nearly thirty thousand dollars.
Adrian did not even look embarrassed.
“I shifted it.”
“To where?”
“The business.”
“Why?”
