I remember one evening in particular, sitting at the kitchen table helping Milo with a math worksheet while the folder sat hidden in my bag by the door. Feeling like two completely different women occupying the same body. I answered his questions about fractions while running through legal terminology in my head. Silently rehearsing exactly how I’d finally say the words “fifteen percent” out loud to my own husband.
Dahlia asked, at one point during that stretch, why I seemed distracted lately. “Just a lot on my mind, sweetheart,” I told her. Which was true enough without being the whole truth. She accepted the answer easily. The way kids usually do when the tone feels honest even if the details stay vague.
I kept the folder locked in my car trunk most days. Terrified Deloris might somehow sense what I’d found before I was ready to confront her with it. Some nights I barely slept, running through exactly how I’d phrase the conversation with Caleb. Rehearsing it the way you rehearse something you know will change everything after you say it out loud.
“She told me it was standard paperwork,” Caleb said. Once I finally sat him down and laid everything out on our kitchen table. “I trusted her. I didn’t read every page. I was working sixty-hour weeks that year. Trying to keep us afloat.”
