“Daniel, you said everything had already been settled.”
The hallway became completely still.
Claire turned toward her husband.
“What exactly was settled?”
“Nothing,” Daniel said quickly.
“You told me the townhouse was going to be sold,” Vanessa continued. “You said the divorce would give us the down payment for a house.”
Daniel shut his eyes.
Claire felt no sudden stab of pain.
Only exhaustion.
So this was how far he had divided her life already.
He had not even left, yet he had assigned it to someone else.
“He told you the townhouse was being sold?”
Vanessa’s expression changed.
“Daniel…”
“Vanessa, wait in the car.”
“No. I want to understand.”
Claire leaned against the doorframe.
“Did he promise you the SUV too?”
The woman’s face revealed the answer before she spoke.
“Daniel…”
“Enough!”
He finally lost control.
“Yes! I told her the SUV would be mine, and that the house was jointly owned! Because it is!”
“Some of its value may indeed be considered during the division of property,” Claire said evenly. “The attorneys will determine the details.”
Vanessa stared at him.
“You told me the entire townhouse belonged to you.”
That was when Daniel truly became lost.
Claire had not exposed him.
He had built two separate versions of his life, and now they had collided in the same narrow hallway.
One version for his wife.
Another for the woman he intended to replace her with.
Vanessa slowly stepped away from him.
“I’ll wait in the car.”
“Vanessa…”
“No.”
She walked outside.
Claire looked at Daniel.
“How interesting.”
“What?”
“You’re leaving one woman for another woman you lied to in exactly the same way you lied to me.”
He opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
“Pack your personal belongings,” Claire said.
Forty minutes later, Daniel drove away.
He had two suitcases.
No television.
No espresso machine.
No SUV.
But the most unexpected development came a week later.
Claire’s mother-in-law called.
“Claire?”
“Yes, Margaret.”
“May I come over?”
Claire was so surprised that she did not think to refuse.
An hour later, Margaret sat at the kitchen table with a cup of tea cooling in front of her.
“I know what you think,” she said.
“I’m not sure I do.”
“You think I came to defend my son.”
“Didn’t you?”
Margaret sighed.
“At first, I intended to.”
Claire said nothing.
“He told me you were trying to leave him with nothing. That the townhouse belonged to him. That the SUV belonged to him. He said you were taking revenge.”
“I see.”
“Then Vanessa called me.”
Claire raised her eyes.
“She called you?”
“They had a terrible argument.”
Margaret gave a bitter little smile.
“Apparently she decided I must also have been involved in his stories about the property.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
“Then he asked me to take out a loan.”
Claire went still.
“For what?”
“To give him money for a rental and a new vehicle. He had already promised the SUV to Vanessa.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“Good Lord.”
Margaret looked down at her hands.
“I raised him badly.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I should say it.”
She straightened in her chair.
“I always told him, ‘Daniel, the most important thing is to make sure you’re comfortable.’ I suppose he took that too literally.”
For the first time in a week, Claire laughed.
Margaret smiled too.
“I’m not going to interfere in your divorce,” she said. “I only came to tell you not to give in out of pity.”
Claire looked at her in surprise.
“You mean that?”
“Completely.”
Margaret finished her tea and stood.
At the door, she turned back.
“One more thing.”
“What?”
“Don’t give him the espresso machine.”
Claire laughed again.
“Why that one?”
“I considered buying him the same model for Christmas once. Then I saw the price and changed my mind.”
The divorce lasted almost seven months.
There were no cinematic victories.
Daniel did not leave the courthouse wearing only his socks.
Claire had to compromise on some matters.
Daniel did too.
The SUV was eventually sold, and the money was divided.
They reached an agreement concerning the townhouse after considering where the original funds had come from.
Daniel received some of the electronics.
Most of the furniture remained with Claire.
Vanessa disappeared from his life before the divorce was finalized.
One afternoon, Emily asked:
“Do you feel sorry for him?”
“Who?”
“Daniel.”
Claire thought about it.
“A little.”
“After everything he did?”
“You can have no desire to take someone back and still feel sorry for them. He spent so many years building an image of a successful man that eventually he believed it himself.”
By spring, the divorce was finally complete.
Claire came home and unlocked the door.
The house was quiet.
Emily had moved into a dorm by then, though she often came over on weekends.
The espresso machine stood on the kitchen counter.
Claire pressed the button.
The machine hummed to life.
Suddenly she remembered Daniel trying to carry it toward the door in the middle of the night.
She began to laugh.
A few days later, Claire decided to do something she had postponed for nearly ten years.
She would repaint the bedroom.