Sandra was in her mid-fifties, silver-haired, beautifully put together, and had the steady gaze of someone who had spent two decades listening to people lie for sport.
I brought her three folders.
One for the affair. One for the timeline. One for the money.
She read in silence while I sat across from her and watched a square of winter light move slowly across her desk. My back ached. The baby had parked herself high under my ribs that week, and every breath felt slightly borrowed.
Sandra finished the third folder, closed it, and looked up.
“Mrs. Callaway,” she said, “most people come in here with intuition and tears. You came in with exhibits.”
“I used to do this for a living.”
“I can tell.”
She asked for the short version of my marriage and got the useful one. Nathan and I met at a fundraising event nine years earlier when I was leading an asset-tracing team for a regional accounting firm. He was charming in that deliberate way successful men can be when they’ve learned to mirror your ambition back at you. He loved that I was smart. Then, gradually, he loved that I was available. Those are not the same thing, though it took me too long to admit it.