“Are you deliberately trying to make me look like a kept man?”
“No. You chose this moment to conduct an accounting.”
His phone rang.
Daniel glanced at the screen and rejected the call immediately.
Claire saw only the name.
Vanessa.
He slipped the phone into his pocket.
“Her?” Claire asked.
“What difference does it make?”
“None.”
For some reason, that answer unsettled him more than jealousy would have.
“You really don’t care?”
Claire considered the question for a moment.
“I care that you lied to me. The identity of the person who helped you do it truly doesn’t matter anymore.”
Emily quietly returned to the room.
Daniel grabbed his jacket.
“I’ll spend tonight somewhere else.”
“Fine.”
“I’ll come for my things tomorrow.”
“Let me know before you arrive.”
He reached the door, then turned back.
“I’m taking the car anyway.”
Claire met his eyes without flinching.
“Try.”
The door slammed behind him.
Emily appeared beside her almost at once.
“Aunt Claire…”
“It’s all right.”
“No, it isn’t.”
Claire suddenly smiled, though there was no happiness in it.
“No. Of course it isn’t.”
Only then did her hands begin to tremble.
She sat down, and Emily came to hold her.
Claire did not cry.
She couldn’t.
One question kept circling through her mind:
How long had he been living beside her while planning a future with someone else?
The answer came during the night.
At three in the morning, Claire woke to the faint metallic click of something being moved.
She stepped into the hallway.
The front door stood open.
Daniel was crouched beside the television.
A screwdriver lay on the floor near his hand.
“What are you doing?”
He jumped.
“I’m taking my things.”
“At three in the morning?”
“So we don’t have to make a spectacle during the day.”
“How considerate.”
“Claire, the television is mine.”
“Why?”
“I chose it.”
For a moment, she could not believe he was serious.
“Daniel, choosing a television and paying for a television are two different things.”
“We were married!”
“Exactly. We were.”
He threw the screwdriver onto the cabinet.
Just then Emily came out of the bedroom with her phone in her hand.
“Are you recording this?” Daniel demanded.
“Yes.”
“Turn it off!”
“Don’t,” Claire said. “Let her record.”
“Have you both lost your minds?”
“You’re trying to remove electronics from the apartment of the woman you told yesterday you were leaving for your mistress. I think having a video might be sensible.”
Daniel went pale.
“Don’t call her that.”
Claire stared at him.
“That’s what bothers you?”
He seized his coat.
“I’ll come back tomorrow with a lawyer.”
“Come.”
“And I’ll take everything I’m entitled to.”
“That is exactly what I want.”
The next morning, Claire called a lawyer herself.
Not because she wanted to leave Daniel with nothing but a toothbrush.
She needed something else.
She needed to understand reality.
Not his version of it.
Not the version shaped by her anger.
Documents.
Facts.
Numbers.
Richard Hale, the attorney, examined everything carefully.
“Some of the property will have to be addressed separately,” he told her. “Don’t assume a receipt in your name automatically settles the matter. Marriage complicates ownership. Still, the source of the funds, money you had before the marriage, and the payments you made will all be relevant. Most importantly, do not hand anything over and do not sign anything while you’re upset.”
Claire nodded.
“What if he comes to remove the appliances?”
“Let him prepare a list of what he claims first. Then we’ll review it.”
Claire left the office and stepped outside.
For the first time since the previous evening, she took a full, steady breath.
The truth was not as simple as she had wanted.
She could not snap her fingers and declare, “This is mine.”
But that realization calmed her.
She did not need revenge.
She needed to stop allowing Daniel to invent the rules.
That evening, he came back.
And he was not alone.
Vanessa was with him.
Claire saw her through the window: a woman in her mid-thirties wearing a light-colored coat, standing beside a large empty vehicle with its rear door open.
Claire actually laughed.
Emily came to the window.
“She really came for the furniture?”
“Looks that way.”
The doorbell rang.
Claire opened the door.
Daniel stood in front.
“I’ve come for my things.”
“Do you have a list?”
“What list?”
“The things you believe belong to you.”
“Am I supposed to be a warehouse clerk now?”
“Then nothing leaves this apartment.”
Vanessa stepped forward.
“Excuse me, I really don’t want to interfere…”
Claire looked directly at her.
“Then don’t.”
The woman fell silent.
Daniel spoke through clenched teeth.
“The television, the coffee machine, the stereo, some of the furniture, and my personal belongings.”
“You can take your personal belongings now.”
“And the rest?”
“After our lawyers determine who owns what.”
Vanessa frowned.
“Daniel, you said everything had already been settled.”
The hallway went quiet.
Claire slowly turned toward her husband.
“What exactly had been settled?”
“Nothing,” Daniel said quickly.