Chapter 9
FELICIA CALLS ON A Wednesday while I’m portioning chicken salad into containers for a Thursday luncheon.
Dom is across the kitchen labeling sheet recalls have a friend in HR at his company.
This is off the record, but his employer completed their internal audit,” she says.
“Wynn was terminated this morning. The reason is willful falsification of business records and violation of the corporate expense policy. No severance.”
I set the portioning spoon down and wipe my hands on my apron. Dom has stopped labeling and is watching me.
“How did they get the records?” I ask.
“Discovery compelled Wynn to produce his corporate card statements as part of the financial disclosure. His attorney had to turn them over. Once we had them, the falsified travel claims were obvious. I also subpoenaed Regional directly for his travel and expense records. Their legal team reviewed the subpoena, compared it against his filed itineraries, and initiated their own internal audit.”
I almost laugh with delight. “Excellent. Is there criminal exposure?”
“That’s their call. The expense fraud is documented. Whether they refer it for prosecution depends on the dollar amount and their appetite for publicity. Either way, the termination is final, and Craig Durbin just lost a client who can pay him.”
I thank her and hang up.
Dom is still watching me from across the kitchen. “Wynn got fired,” I say.
“From Regional?”
“This morning because of falsified expense reports. They terminated with cause.”
Dom sets the label maker on the counter. He leans against the prep table, arms crossed and looks at the floor for a long moment. When he looks up, his expression isn’t satisfaction or relief. It’s closer to fatigue.
“I keep expecting to feel something bigger when these things happen,” he says. “The divorce, the board complaint, now this. I keep thinking there’ll be a moment where it all adds up and feels like enough.”
“Does it?”
“No. It just feels like accounting.”
He’s right. I got a moment of genuine pleasure from his termination, but it isn’t enough.
We don’t celebrate. We don’t high-five across the prep counter or toast with coffee cups.
A man I was married to for seven years just lost his career because of choices he made while I was planning his dinner, and the satisfaction I expected to feel is quieter than I thought it would be.
It’s arithmetic. Two years of fraud produced a predictable result, but he deserves to suffer more, though I doubt he will. It’s petty, but I don’t care.
I go back to portioning. Dom goes back to labeling. The kitchen radio plays something with a steel guitar, and we work until the luncheon prep is finished, and neither of us mentions Wynn again for the rest of the day.
CLAIBORNE HOSPICE REACHES its own conclusion the following week. Felicia calls with the update while I’m driving to a venue walk-through for a corporate retreat.
“Claiborne completed their internal review,” she says. “Ellora’s employment is terminated. Administrative leave is now a permanent separation. They’ve submitted the termination letter to the board as supporting documentation.”
I pull into the parking lot of the event space, put the car in park, and let the engine idle.
Ellora lost her job. She’s seven months pregnant, unemployed, and under investigation by the board that licenses her profession.
Wynn has no income. They’re in the apartment together, the one with the matching coffee maker and the assembled crib, and the financial floor just dropped out from under both of them.
I sit in the car and wait for the feeling I thought this moment would. The elation and sense of satisfaction hits. They earned the consequences. The only one deserving any sympathy is that baby, but I’m not going to dwell on any of it.
It suddenly hits me like a wave of relief that I’m done. There are still legal formalities ahead, but I’m done thinking about the betrayal. I want to think about venue layouts, grain salad yields, and the Saturday schedule Dom left on my desk this morning instead.
I get out of the car and walk into the venue walk-through.
IN THE DIVORCE PROCEEDINGS, Felicia presents the dissipation accounting.
Twenty-four months of apartment expenses totaling $68,412, itemized through credit card statements Wynn was compelled to produce.
Rent, furniture, kitchen supplies, baby merchandise from a boutique on 12th Avenue South, and a crib from a retailer in The Gulch.
My photographs from the apartment corroborate the paper trail.
In an equitable distribution state, my share of that dissipation shifts the settlement math by roughly thirty-four thousand dollars in my favor.
Wynn’s attorney asks for a continuance. Felicia objects. The judge denies the delay.
ELLORA’S TEXT ARRIVES on a Saturday evening while I’m cleaning up after a delivery.
The message is long. I read it standing at the counter with a dish towel over my shoulder.
Natalie, I know this isn’t a conversation you want to have, and I understand that. I want you to know that I have never, at any point, questioned your right to be upset about what happened. You have every reason to feel the way you feel, and I’m not writing to minimize that.
What I am asking you to consider is whether the nursing board complaint serves anyone at this point.
I provided your mother with the best care I was capable of giving.
The quality of that care was never compromised.
What happened between Wynn and me was personal, and I accept that the timing was wrong, but a professional sanction for a personal relationship will follow me for the rest of my career.
I am seven months pregnant. I am unemployed.
Wynn has lost his position. The board complaint, if it results in disciplinary action, will make it significantly harder for me to support my child.
I’m not asking you to forgive me. I’m asking you to consider whether this complaint is about accountability or punishment, and if the punishment falls on the right person.
Ellora Voight, RN, BSN
I read it twice. The letter is structured, measured, and carefully worded.
She probably drafted it on her laptop and transferred it to text.
She signed it with her credentials, as if the letters after her name still carry authority in a conversation with the wife whose marriage she helped dismantle.
The complaint stays. It stays because she crossed a professional boundary during my mother’s care, the board investigation will determine the consequences through its own process and withdrawing it because the consequences arrived at an inconvenient time for her isn’t a debt I owe her or her child.
DOM TELLS ME ABOUT Wynn’s call on a Sunday morning.
We’re in the Three Table parking lot. He’s leaning against his car with his keys in one hand, engine still running.
I’m carrying a box of garnish supplies for a brunch event.
The morning is cool for Nashville in summer, and Dom’s wearing the same gray henley he wears every Sunday, with the sleeves pushed to the elbows. “Wynn called me this morning.”
I set the box on my trunk. “When?”
“Seven-thirty. He called my cell, which means he still has my number from when we were all friends.” He pauses. “He said he wanted to talk man-to-man.”
“Man-to-man.”
“Those were his words.” Dom crosses his arms, uncrosses them, and then shoves them behind his back.
He’s uncomfortable, which is unusual. Dom doesn’t do confrontation if he can avoid it.
He does quiet labor, steady presence, and leaving the room when the conversation goes somewhere he can’t follow.
Wynn calling him was a miscalculation. Wynn assumed that because Dom is a man and a widower, there was common ground to exploit.
“He said I should understand what it’s like to lose connection in a marriage. He said people grow apart. It doesn’t make anyone a villain, and he hoped I could see the situation with some perspective because I’ve been through loss too.”
“He compared losing Holly to cheating on me?” My mouth hangs open in shock before I recover. “The pure, unmitigated gall!”
Dom nods, scowling. “He tried to. He framed it as understanding. Like grief and infidelity are the same category of experience, and because I’d been through one, I should have sympathy for the other.”
“What did you say?”
Dom looks at the asphalt, then at me. His face is calm, but his shoulders are set, and I can see the tension across the top of his chest. “I told him that Holly died in my arms after eight months of cancer, and I never once left our house to live in a secret apartment while she was dying.”
His voice is level. Direct. No performance. No raised voice, no profanity, and no dramatic pause. Just the fact of what he did and what Wynn didn’t. Dom earned the right to make that comparison, and he used it once.
“What did Wynn say?”
“Nothing. He hung up.” Dom turns off his car. We carry the supplies inside together. He holds the kitchen door open with his shoulder while I slide the box through, and he doesn’t mention Wynn again.