“Fine,” I said. “Sore. Tired.”
She nodded, already distracted, already moving on.
I watched her leave the room and felt something inside me harden into resolve. Whatever was in that envelope, whatever she and Mercer thought I couldn’t know, I was done being the last person in my own life to find out the truth.
Brandon picked me up later that morning in his battered Tacoma, the one he refused to replace because, as he put it, “It’s paid for and it doesn’t ask questions.” He didn’t say much on the drive to his office. He didn’t need to. The look on my face told him this wasn’t about an affair or a midlife crisis.
This was about survival.
Nicole called Mia before I could. She painted herself as the victim, me as the monster. For weeks, my daughter wouldn’t speak to me. She used her college fund to help defend the woman who had planned to orphan her.
I let her go.
I didn’t push. I didn’t force the truth.
I waited.
