Do not come looking for us.
Hannah.
I read it three times.
The final line blurred.
Not because the ink had smudged.
Because I had.
Daniel waited silently.
I lowered the letter.
“Is she safe?”
“Yes.”
“Is Grace okay?”
“Yes.”
I nodded, though the motion felt mechanical.
“Does Grace…” My voice cracked. “Does she have everything she needs?”
Daniel’s face softened, but only a little. “She has Hannah.”
That answer hurt because it was enough.
I looked down at the shopping bags near the doorway.
Vanessa’s diamond bracelet.
Vanessa’s perfume.
Vanessa’s handbags.
All purchased on credit cards Hannah had already documented.
I walked to them, picked them up, and carried them outside.
Daniel followed me to the driveway.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
I opened the trash bin and threw everything in.
The bags landed with a hollow thud.
It didn’t fix anything.
It didn’t make me noble.
It didn’t undo the messages, the hotel rooms, the hospital hallway.
But it was the first honest thing I had done all day.
When I came back inside, Daniel was watching me.
“You need a lawyer,” he said.
“I need my family.”
“You need to understand that those might not be the same thing anymore.”
I sat down on the bottom stair and put my head in my hands.
Daniel didn’t comfort me.
I didn’t deserve comfort.
After a while, he said, “There’s something else.”
I looked up.
“What?”
“Hannah didn’t only find your affair.”
My chest tightened again.
“What does that mean?”
Daniel glanced toward the kitchen table.
“She found the account.”
For a moment, I didn’t understand.
Then I did.
The investment account.
The one I had opened a year earlier.
The one I hadn’t told Hannah about.
It wasn’t illegal. At least, that was what I had told myself. It was bonus money, commissions, a little stock profit. Money I kept aside because marriage had started to feel too expensive. Because babies were expensive. Because Hannah wanted to talk about college savings and life insurance and medical bills.
Because I wanted money that was only mine.
“How much does she know?” I asked.
“All of it.”
