Chapter 8
Brooke found her old red coat at the back of the hall closet.
She wore it to meet me for lunch the next day. I recognized it before I recognized her coming down the street. She saw me looking and smiled.
“I almost put it back,” she said when she reached the table.
“I’m glad you didn’t.”
She sat facing the window. For most of the meal, she talked about a project at work and a weekend trip Tessa wanted to take. Then her phone rang.
It was Amara.
Brooke listened, asked two questions, and wrote something on a napkin.
After she hung up, she said Diane had been charged over the false business records. The investigators believed she had helped create the invoices and direct the money to her company.
I felt anger rise again at the thought of my bakery’s name on those documents.
“What happens next?” I asked.
“Amara said there will be hearings. We’ll get the dates.”
Brooke folded the napkin. “I thought I’d feel happy when someone finally held Diane responsible.”
“What do you feel?”
“Mostly sad that she helped him.”
“You don’t owe her a different feeling.”
The divorce continued. Grant’s attorney made another offer. This one recognized Brooke’s ownership of the house and included repayment of some documented business transfers. Amara wanted to review the company records before advising her.
Brooke agreed to wait.
Waiting used to make her frantic. Now she filled the time with work, friends, and the small choices she had missed. She invited Tessa to dinner. She signed up for a weekend ceramics class. She began seeing a counselor who helped her talk about the years before the restaurant.
I saw changes in things she said without thinking.
Once, when we planned Sunday lunch, she said, “I don’t want to go to that café. The noise bothers me.”
Then she looked startled, as if expecting me to argue.
“Let’s choose somewhere quieter,” I said.
She nodded. A minute later, she laughed softly.
“I forgot I could just say that.”
A month later, the prosecution asked Brooke to prepare for a hearing in Grant’s assault case. The restaurant video and witnesses were strong evidence, but she might still be asked to describe what had happened.
She was frightened. She practiced telling it to her counselor and went over the process with the advocate. I drove her to the courthouse on the hearing day.
In the hallway, Grant stood with his attorney. He glanced at Brooke’s red coat, then at her face.
She looked straight ahead.
Diane was not with him.
Inside, Brooke answered questions about the dinner. She described paying the household bills, correcting Grant, and feeling his hand pull her hair. She explained why she had kept records of earlier incidents.
Grant’s attorney asked why she had gone to dinner with him if she was afraid.
“Because my mother was there,” Brooke replied. “I thought I would be safe.”
I kept my eyes on her. She did not look toward me until she stepped down.
After the hearing, the prosecutor explained the next steps. A final outcome would take more time. Brooke thanked her and asked to go home.
We stopped at a grocery store on the way. She bought bread, tomatoes, and a bunch of white flowers. At her house, she put the flowers in a vase by the front window.
“Is it hard seeing him again?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you want me to stay?”
“For dinner. Then I want a quiet night alone.”
I helped chop tomatoes. We ate at the kitchen table while she told me about a bowl she had made in ceramics class. It was uneven, she said, but it held water.
Before I left, she showed it to me on the windowsill. It was blue with a crooked edge. I thought it was beautiful.
“Will you make another?” I asked.
“I’m making a whole set.”
The next morning, Brooke called to tell me she had slept well. Then she said there was a letter from Grant’s mother in her mailbox.
“I haven’t opened it.”
“You can send it to Amara.”
“I will.”
Amara read it first. Diane wrote that she regretted her words at the restaurant and asked Brooke to tell prosecutors that she had misunderstood Diane’s involvement in the invoices.
Brooke asked Amara to keep the letter with the other records.
“She still wants something from me,” Brooke said.
“Yes.”
“I don’t want to answer.”
May you like
“Then don’t.”
That evening, she called Denise, an older neighbor who had watched her cat during our trips years before, and asked her to come over for tea. Brooke was building a life inside her house again. Diane’s letter remained with Amara.
