Peggy had understood because she wanted to.
He also kept separate bank accounts Peggy never saw statements for. When she asked once, nervous but curious, Richard patted her hand like she was a child.
“Don’t worry your pretty head about money, darling,” he’d said with a smile. “That’s my job. Your job is to make this house a home. And you do it perfectly.”
Peggy had flushed with pride and pushed her concerns away.
That was her pattern: accept what she was given and call it love.
Even when Richard began taking weekend trips alone—once a month, sometimes more—claiming he needed to decompress at a property inherited from a relative, Peggy never questioned it.
She packed his bag. She kissed him goodbye. She trusted him.
Trust was the foundation she’d built her adult life on.
She would learn later it was a foundation of sand.
Richard died on a Tuesday morning in March, three months shy of his eighty-fifth birthday.
Peggy found him at seven a.m., coffee cup in hand. Forty years of ritual. She brought coffee to his bedside every morning at the same time. It was how she marked her place in the marriage—useful, consistent, needed.
She walked into the bedroom and paused.