Chapter 8
It took everything in my power to keep my voice steady. “Michael, I’m so sorry. Something came up with the deal. Last-minute paperwork issues with the buyer’s financing. The lawyers are keeping me downtown, and it looks like it’s going to be a late night. I’m just going to grab a room at the Benson rather than wake you up when I finally get out of here.”
He sounded perfectly, flawlessly disappointed. “Oh, Margaret, that’s awful. Are you okay? Do you want me to come down there?”
“No,” I said quickly. “No, it’s fine. It’s just tedious. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow then,” he said warmly. “We’ll celebrate your big news tomorrow. Love you.”
“Bye,” I said, and ended the call.
I lay awake in Linda’s guest room that entire night, staring at the shadows playing across the ceiling. Thirty-eight years of memories played through my mind, but they were no longer comforting; they were a horror movie where I finally understood the plot twist. I remembered our wedding day, standing in the back of the church, shivering in my lace dress. I remembered the terrifying, joyous day Sarah was born. I remembered the lean years, when my business was hemorrhaging money and Michael worked a second job doing taxes on weekends just to keep our mortgage paid. He had been my partner. My rock. The man who held me until I stopped shaking when the hospital called to tell me my father had passed.
And now, he was the man who brought a girl half my age into our home on Thursday afternoons.
Over the next two weeks, I systematically fractured my own soul. I became someone I deeply despised: a spy in my own life.
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With Linda’s help, I hired a private investigator—a quiet, unremarkable-looking former detective named Reynolds. Sitting in his sterile, fluorescent-lit office, handing over a photograph of my husband and a description of a dented silver Honda Civic, was the most surreal, humiliating experience of my life.
While Reynolds worked, I returned home. I acted normal. It was a performance that deserved an Academy Award. I slept in the guest room, claiming the “stress of the finalizing the business sale” was giving me insomnia and I didn’t want to keep Michael awake. I made small talk over morning coffee. I asked about his clients. I smiled. And every time he touched my shoulder, every time he kissed my cheek, my skin crawled with a revulsion so deep it felt cellular.
