Chapter 5 - The Woman Who Knew My Husband Better Than I Did
There is a particular cruelty in discovering that strangers have been celebrating a future built on the destruction of your present.
I enlarged the July photograph until the pixels blurred.
Evan looked happy.
Not politely happy.
Not performing the smile he used in corporate photographs.
Genuinely happy.
His arm wrapped around Paige with an ease I hadn't felt from him in months.
I wanted to hate her.
It would have been simpler.
But Melissa's messages suggested Paige believed a version of my marriage that Evan had invented.
That didn't make her innocent.
It did, however, make the situation more complicated than the neat story of a villainous mistress stealing a faithful husband.
At 11:08 a.m., Melissa called.
"Claire?"
"Yes."
"I'm sorry."
Her voice shook.
I sat at the kitchen table.
"What did Evan tell you?"
She hesitated.
"That you'd been separated for months. That you were living together temporarily because of the property. He said things were amicable."
I looked around my kitchen.
The pumpkin-shaped salt and pepper shakers I'd bought the previous weekend sat beside the stove.
Amicable.
Apparently, I was living through a separation without being informed.
"How long have they been together?"
"Paige told me things became serious in April."
April.
My birthday month.
Evan had given me diamond earrings that April and said he wished he could provide everything I deserved.
Suddenly, the memory made me nauseated.
"Did she know we weren't separated?"
"I don't know."
Melissa lowered her voice.
"But there is something else."
I waited.
"Paige believed Evan was going to move in with her after her mother's recovery."
I closed my eyes.
"Did he tell her that?"
"Yes. At least, that's what she told me."
"Thank you."
"Claire, I really am sorry. I wouldn't have sent those messages if I'd known—"
"You didn't do this."
After ending the call, I sat quietly for several minutes.
Then I removed my wedding ring.
It didn't slide off easily.
Eight years had left a pale indentation around my finger.
I placed it inside an envelope.
Not because I had stopped remembering what it once represented.
Because I finally understood what it no longer did.
By Thursday, Rebecca had begun examining the financial documents.
She recommended that I obtain independent banking records and verify whether any applications, guarantees, or credit inquiries had been made using my identity.
I followed her instructions.
The results were worse than I'd expected.
Several months earlier, Evan had begun redirecting a portion of our household savings.
Some transfers were ordinary.
Others weren't.
The largest went to a newly created account at a financial institution I didn't recognize.
Rebecca requested documentation through the appropriate channels.
Meanwhile, I opened a separate personal account and arranged to redirect my independent income there.
It wasn't much.
Over the past year, I'd earned occasional money consulting on residential interiors for friends and former clients.
But the money was mine.
For the first time in years, I felt an unexpected sense of relief seeing my name on an account Evan couldn't casually monitor.
Friday brought another message from Melissa.
Paige knows I spoke to you.
My heart began pounding.
What happened?
She's furious. But not at you.
A minute later, my phone rang.
An unfamiliar number.
I almost ignored it.
Then I answered.
"Hello?"
"Claire?"
A woman's voice.
Soft.
Unsteady.
"Who is this?"
"It's Paige."
My entire body stiffened.
Neither of us spoke for several seconds.
Then she said, "I think we need to talk."
I looked toward the window.
"About my husband?"
"Yes."
"Which version of him?"
She inhaled sharply.
"I deserve that."
"No," I replied. "You deserve whatever happens between you and Evan. I deserve the truth."
Paige began crying.
Ordinarily, another woman's tears would have activated my instinct to comfort her.
Not this time.
"Did you know he was still living with me?"
"He told me you were separated."
"Did he tell you that while he was wearing the anniversary watch I bought him?"
Silence.
"Claire—"
"Did he tell you we still slept in the same bed?"
She didn't answer.
"Did he tell you I packed his medication before his imaginary flight to Atlanta?"
Paige made a small, broken sound.
Finally, she whispered, "No."
I wanted to believe her.
But I no longer had the luxury of trusting people simply because they sounded sincere.
"Then what do you want?"
She hesitated.
"My mother is sick. Evan has been helping with her treatment, and I just found out he used your name for something."
Every muscle in my body tightened.
"What something?"
"I don't know everything."
"Then find out."
"I can explain—"
"Paige, I already have paperwork with my signature on it."
Her breathing changed.
"Your signature?"
"Yes."
Another long silence followed.
Then she said something I would remember for years.
"Claire, Evan told me you personally offered to help."
I stared at the wall.
She continued.
"He said you were a good person. That despite the separation, you understood what my family was going through."
I nearly laughed.
My husband hadn't merely borrowed my money.
He had borrowed my character.
He had used the kindness he knew I'd shown throughout our marriage to make another woman believe I would willingly finance his deception.
"Did you ever speak to me?" I asked.
"No."
"Then you had no right to believe I'd agreed."
"I know."
"Do you?"
She began crying again.
I looked at the clock.
For months, Evan had moved between two women, using different stories to remain important in both their lives.
And somehow, he had convinced himself nobody would compare notes.
"I want copies of everything," I said.
Paige sniffed.
"What?"
"Every document involving my name. Every email. Every message in which Evan claimed I authorized something."
"Claire, he doesn't know I'm calling."
"Then perhaps it's time he discovered what being blindsided feels like."
I ended the call.
That evening, Paige sent me seventeen screenshots.
The first fifteen were financial discussions.
The sixteenth showed Evan telling her that my signature had already been secured.
But the seventeenth made my blood run cold.
It was a message dated three weeks earlier.
May you like
Evan had written:
Once the financing clears, I can finally get out of the house. Claire won't make things difficult. She never does.
