Chapter 15 #2
I told her about Hannah Geren and the forensic accounting report that had revealed the scope of Brett's betrayal. Four point two million dollars hidden in offshore accounts. A Manhattan apartment purchased.
"He bought an apartment?" Kimberly's voice got higher with each word, building toward something that sounded like controlled fury. "He bought a two milliondollar apartment? For her?"
"The apartment's in his name," I clarified, though that distinction probably didn't matter to someone whose father had been hiding money from his own family.
"But yes, essentially he's been financing his affair with our marital assets while pretending we needed to be careful about college expenses. "
Quiet settled across the phone line while my daughter processed the information that her father wasn't just emotionally betraying our family but financially betraying us as well.
That he'd been stealing from our shared future to fund his romantic escape with someone young enough to be her older sister.
"I want to kill him," she said with anger that came from discovering someone you'd trusted completely was capable of betrayal you'd never imagined possible. "I want to drive down there right now and scream at him until his ears bleed."
"Don't do that," I said, though part of me wanted to join her in whatever confrontation she was imagining. "We need to be strategic about this. Hannah says if he realizes we know about the hidden money, he might accelerate his timeline for whatever he's planning."
"What do you think he's planning?"
I thought about the Manhattan apartment and the offshore accounts and the nineteen months of asset concealment that suggested advance planning for a significant life change.
"I think he's planning to divorce me first," I said, surprised by how certain I sounded. "I think he wants to serve me with papers when I'm least prepared to fight back, when he's already hidden as much money as possible and established his new life with Alison."
"But you're ahead of him now," Kimberly said, her tone shifting from fury to something that sounded like strategic thinking. "You have lawyers and investigators and evidence he doesn't know you've collected. You can beat him to it."
Beat him to it. File first, before he could execute whatever plan he'd been developing for over a year. Serve him with divorce papers when he thought he was still fooling me with lies about business conferences and department meetings.
"I think you're right," I said. "Lindsay thinks surprise is our biggest advantage. If we can file before Brett realizes I know about the affair and the hidden money, we have a much better chance of recovering those assets and protecting my financial interests."
We talked for another thirty minutes about strategy and timeline and how to protect Devin from the worst of what was coming.
My son deserved to hear about his parents' divorce from us rather than discovering it through rumors or legal documents, but he also deserved to finish his senior year without the additional stress of family implosion during his college recruitment process.
"We have to tell him soon," Kimberly said. "Before Dad gets served with papers, and becomes public, or before someone else tells him what's happening to our family."
She was right, but the thought of destroying Devin's senior year with news that his father had been living a double life made my stomach ache in ways that had nothing to do with wine or stress or the accumulation of betrayals I'd been processing for weeks.
"I know," I said. "I just need to figure out how to tell a seventeen-year-old that his father is a lying piece of shit who's been stealing from our family to fund his affair, in language that won't destroy his relationship with Brett permanently."
"Maybe there's no way to say it that won't hurt him," Kimberly said quietly. "Maybe the best we can do is be honest and let him decide how to handle it. He's stronger than you think, Mom. And he deserves to know the truth about what his father really is."
After we hung up, I retired to the family room with my wine and my phone, thinking about conversations I wasn't ready to have and decisions that would change everything for everyone I loved.
Outside, our neighborhood looked exactly as it always had.
Beautiful houses with well-maintained lawns where families lived lives that didn't include forensic accountants or private investigators or evidence of financial betrayal.
Tomorrow, Randy Parker would begin documenting Brett's romantic weekend in Seattle while I figured out how to tell my son that everything he'd believed about his family was built on lies his father had been telling for over a year.
Next week, I'd accelerate my timeline and move toward filing divorce papers before Brett could execute whatever exit strategy he'd been planning while I'd been trying to save our marriage with better communication and increased patience.
Everything happens for a reason, apparently.
Even betrayal and lies and the complete destruction of everything you thought was permanent.
Maybe this ending really was a beginning, an opportunity to discover what financial independence looked like when it wasn't dependent on someone else's choices or hidden agendas or deception.
But first, I had to survive telling my children that their father was a stranger who'd been playing a role for longer than any of us had realized.
The wine was excellent. Brett had always had good taste in everything except wives and moral choices, apparently.
My phone rang at nine-fifteen, interrupting my spiral into bitter contemplation of financial betrayal and asset concealment.
Robin's name on the screen made me grateful for any distraction from calculating how much money Brett had stolen from our marriage while I'd been worried about whether he still found me attractive.
"Emergency wine delivery," Robin announced before I could even say hello. "I'm in your driveway with reinforcements and chocolate. Let me in before I freeze to death providing emotional support."
I opened the front door to find Robin holding a bottle of Caymus and a bag from that chocolate shop downtown that charged twenty dollars for truffles that disappeared in two bites.
She looked determined in a way women did when they'd decided someone they loved needed rescuing, whether or not that person had asked for help.
"You sounded odd when we talked this morning," she said, settling at my kitchen island like someone prepared to stay as long as necessary to fix whatever was broken.
"Odd in a way that told me you were holding back important information about your husband being an even bigger bastard than we'd already established. "
"I hired the private investigator," I said, accepting the wine like medicine I didn't want but probably needed. "Randy Parker. He's in Seattle right now, documenting whatever Brett and Alison are doing while they pretend this is a legitimate business conference."