Chapter 6
I did not answer the anonymous message.
I forwarded it to Ryan and called him.
“Did you find a hotel receipt?” I asked.
“Yes. In Megan’s email. It’s from the night she and Daniel say they slept together.”
“Does it show anything else?”
“No.”
“Then why would she want me distracted from it?”
“I don’t know. The room was booked under her name and paid for with her card.”
I thought of what Daniel told me: they had been at her studio.
“Daniel said it happened at the studio.”
Ryan was quiet.
“I’ll send you the date and the hotel name. You can ask him.”
At the counseling session, I put the receipt on the table between us.
Daniel stared at it.
“I went to the studio first,” he said. “We left together.”
“Why did you leave that out?”
“I didn’t want to give you every detail.”
“You gave me a false one.”
“You’re right.”
The counselor let us sit with it.
I asked Daniel whether it really happened once.
“Yes.”
“Did you meet at the hotel again?”
“No.”
“Can you show me something that supports that?”
He took out his phone.
“I can show you the messages. I can also give you my location history if you want it.”
“I don’t want to become your guard.”
“I know.”
“What I wanted was for you to tell me the truth without making me find the next piece.”
He nodded.
“Then here it is. I met her at the studio. We argued about whether I should tell you how close we’d become. I told her we had to stop talking. She asked me to come with her. I went to the hotel. I stayed about two hours. I came home and let you think I had been helping Erin.”
“Did Erin know?”
“No. I said she had called about Dad. It was a lie.”
The counselor asked what Daniel had told himself after that night.
“That it was one mistake. If I cut it off, Claire would never have to be hurt by it.”
“But you didn’t cut it off,” I said.
“No. Megan kept saying she was late. I kept answering.”
“You were answering before she said that too.”
“Yes.”
There was nothing left to hide inside a clever explanation.
At the end of the session, the counselor asked what each of us needed next.
“I need space,” I said. “And I need Daniel to stop asking how soon I’ll decide.”
“I can do that,” he replied.
Outside, he walked me to my car without touching me.
“I’m sorry I made you pull the story out of me,” he said.
I believed he meant it.
I did not know whether that changed anything.
Ryan called later with news. He had discovered that the anonymous number belonged to a temporary messaging service. Megan admitted she had asked a cousin to send the anniversary message.
“She wanted you focused on an old date,” Ryan said. “She thought the hotel receipt would make Daniel tell you she had planned the room.”
“Did she?”
“She booked it the day before.”
I sat very still.
Megan had said the night was unplanned. Daniel had said they argued, then went together. He might not have known she booked the room early. She had still made a choice long before that evening.
I told Daniel what Ryan found.
He sounded stunned.
“She told me she needed a place to talk privately because her studio assistant was coming back.”
“Did she tell you the booking was made the day before?”
“No.”
“It doesn’t excuse you.”
“I know.”
I thought of the anonymous message, the public post, and her changing accounts of Lena’s dinner. Megan kept trying to steer what each of us looked at.
For the first time in weeks, I stopped following her.
I met with a lawyer to understand what separation would mean for my home, our finances, and the bookstore. I gathered statements. I spoke with Tasha about where I wanted to live.
The house had been mine before I married Daniel. I could stay there.
When I told him he needed to remove the rest of his belongings by the end of the month, he said he would arrange it with Tasha.
That night, I took the wedding photograph out of my bag. I looked at my laughing face, then put it in a box.
May you like
I had not decided the end of our marriage yet.
I had decided I could make plans for myself.
