Chapter 3

I didn't call the hotel to cancel the booking. If I alerted Ethan now, he would only come up with another explanation before I knew how much of our life he had already handed to her. Instead, I opened our banking app and selected the household Visa ending in 4819. A notice sat at the top of the account settings. [Authorized User Added: Lauren Cole] The card had been issued three weeks ago. I opened the recent charges. The cream-colored coat Lauren had worn in our driveway this morning was there, along with the suite upgrade at Harbor View Inn. The credit card payments hadn't come from Ethan's personal checking account. They had been paid out of our Family Reserve Account. We had opened that reserve five years ago to save for a larger house with a yard. More than two-thirds of the money had come from my design bonuses and the small inheritance my mother left me. I clicked into the reserve account. Nearly thirty-eight thousand dollars was gone. Earlier transfers had covered Lauren's divorce retainer and the penalty for breaking her apartment lease. The largest transfer had been made ten days ago. [Amount: $18,000] [Recipient: Lauren Cole] [Memo: Fresh Start] My hand went still on the trackpad. All those nights Ethan had kissed my forehead and thanked me for keeping our budget on track, he had been using our savings to fund another woman's new life. My phone buzzed on the desk. A notification showed that Lauren had just posted a new photo from Harbor View Inn. I opened it. She stood on the balcony of the ocean-view suite I had booked. The sea stretched out behind her, and Ethan stood at her side with his bare left hand resting against her waist. Beneath the image, she had written: [Starting over feels less scary when someone walks into the new life with you.] Ethan had liked the post three minutes ago. This morning, he had looked me in the eye and called her his sister. I took a screenshot of the post and his reaction. Before I could lock my phone, the shared tablet charging in the corner of the office lit up. Ethan used it to check his messages when he worked from home, and his account was still synced. A text from Lauren appeared at the top of the screen. [A couple of our friends saw the balcony photo. What if Claire sees it and refuses to let this go by tomorrow?] I picked up the tablet. Ethan's reply came less than thirty seconds later. [Stop worrying. She won't leave.] [She told you not to bother putting your ring back on,] Lauren wrote. [She was angry,] Ethan replied. [She's worn the ring I bought her in college for ten years. She's not going to throw our marriage away over one weekend.] I stared at the screen until the glass dimmed. For ten years, I had kept that thin gold band on my finger because I believed it meant something neither of us would ever trade. To Ethan, those ten years were only proof that I would stay no matter what he did. I woke the tablet screen and photographed the conversation with my phone. Then I downloaded the reserve statements, the credit card authorization, and the hotel modification log into a private folder. I didn't send Ethan a single text. Instead, I called my sister Audrey and asked for the number of the divorce attorney she had used two years ago. Rachel Moore answered on the second ring. She listened quietly while I explained the anniversary dinner, the money taken from our reserve, and the authorized card issued in Lauren's name. "Do not confront him tonight," Rachel said evenly. "And don't cancel that card until we have your records and belongings out of the house." "Can you meet me tomorrow morning?" I asked. "Eight o'clock at my office," she said. "Some clients only want a separation notice at this stage to freeze the accounts. Tell me what you're looking for." I looked down at the thin gold band on my left hand. "I don't want a warning," I said. "I want a divorce."