Her fingers worried at the cardboard sleeve of her coffee cup. “I didn’t know about the money.”
I said nothing.
“I know that sounds stupid.”
“It sounds irrelevant.”
She winced. Fair enough.
“He told me you were unhappy,” she said. “That your marriage was dead, that you stayed because it was easier and because your father controlled everything. He said the house was basically his, the accounts were his, that once the divorce happened you’d both be fine because there was more than enough to go around.”
“And you believed him.”
She looked up at me. “Yes.”
There was no point pretending I found her sympathetic. But I did find her useful.
“When did it start?”
She hesitated. “About eighteen months ago.”
I actually felt the floor tilt a little. “At the funeral you said almost a year.”
“That’s what he told me to say if anyone ever asked.”
Of course.
I finally took the envelope. Inside were printouts of texts and emails. Screenshots. A hotel invoice. Photos of the two of them together that she’d apparently kept because women in affairs always think they’re collecting memories when what they’re really collecting is evidence.
My eyes landed on one date and stopped.