Chapter 8 #3
Nathan moved from his chair to crouch in front of his mother.
“She may contact you. Her father may contact you. Dr. Lane or someone connected to the fund may contact you. I need you not to give them information. I need you not to let Brooke into your care portal, your apartment, or anything connected to me.”
Erin shook her head slightly. “I don’t understand.”
“I know.”
“I need to call her. She’ll have a reasonable explanation.”
“No,” Nathan said, more forcefully than Annie had ever heard him speak to his mother. “I’m sorry, Mom, but no.”
Erin looked startled. “But, Nathan?—”
“No,” he said. “You cannot call Brooke. If she has an explanation, her attorney can send it to Tricia. She is not the person who needs comfort from us right now.”
Annie looked down at her hands.
Erin began to cry quietly. Nathan stayed crouched before her, not touching until she reached for him.
Then he took her hands. He comforted her, but he did not take back what he had said.
Annie had asked to hear him choose truth in front of someone who mattered.
He had done it. She did not know yet what that changed, but she had heard it.
After a few minutes, Erin looked at Annie again. “I’m sorry.”
Annie nodded.
“I didn’t know,” Erin said.
“I believe you.”
When they left the residence, Nathan walked Annie to her car. For a moment they stood in the parking lot while wind lifted fallen leaves across the asphalt. “Thank you for being there,” he said.
“I needed to hear it. She needed to hear it.”
“I know.” He stopped himself and gave a humorless little breath. “Sorry. I’m trying not to use that as punctuation.”
“I can tell.”
His face changed at that. Not relief exactly. Something smaller. Something he did not try to spend.
“My mother will grieve Brooke,” he said.
“Yes.”
“I hate that part of me still feels responsible for that.”
“You should feel responsible for some of it. You allowed Brooke to become necessary.”
He nodded slowly. “Yes.”
“But she inserted herself into your weak places.”
“Yes.”
“And you left the doors open.”
His eyes returned to hers. “Yes.”
Her phone rang before either of them could say more. Tricia. Annie answered on speaker because Nathan was already watching her face change.
“Brooke is at the station with counsel,” Tricia said.
“Her position is that she did not hire Joel Reeder. Her father did, through the fund, after Brooke expressed concern that Annie might harm Nathan. Brooke claims she disabled the camera because she feared Annie would stage something and blame her.”
Annie let out a breath that was almost a laugh. “Naturally.”
“There’s more. Brooke produced screenshots of messages from Nathan’s old personal email appearing to confirm he wanted a separation plan.”
Nathan went rigid.
Annie’s eyes stayed on his. “Were they real?”
Tricia said, “Deena is reviewing. Initial impression: selectively edited, possibly manipulated. Nathan, I need your authorization to obtain the full archive.”
Nathan stepped closer to the phone. “You have it.”
“One screenshot includes the line, I need a plan before Annie destroys me.”
Annie looked at him.
Nathan’s face showed horror, then memory. “I wrote something like that,” he said, voice low.
Annie’s chest tightened.
He did not look away. “After an argument. I wrote to Brooke that I needed a plan before grief destroyed us. Not Annie. Grief.”
Tricia said, “That is what we need to prove.”
Annie’s mind moved faster than her fear.
Arguments. Emails. Apologies half-written and never sent.
Nathan had once forwarded her an article about infertility grief from his old email with a message attached.
She remembered reading it in bed while he slept beside her, both of them pretending not to cry.
“I might have it,” she said.
Nathan looked at her.
“A forwarded article,” Annie said. “Two years ago. Maybe around February.”
Tricia’s voice sharpened. “Find it now.”
Annie got into her car, opened her email, and searched infertility grief. Nothing. She searched destroy us. Three results appeared. Her hand shook as she opened the oldest.
From: Nathan Grisham
Subject: I don’t know how to talk about this
The date was February 18, two years earlier.
Annie read the preview.
I told Brooke that we need a plan before grief destroys us. I want a plan that gets me back to you.
For a second, the parking lot disappeared.
The past stood there instead: the failed transfer, the silent house, Nathan moving around her as if grief were a bruise he might press too hard, Annie lying awake and wondering whether the marriage had become another body that would not do what she needed it to do.
She forwarded the email to Tricia. “I sent it.”
Tricia exhaled. “Good. Very good.”
Annie lowered the phone. Nathan stood beside the open car door, his face stripped open.
“I did want a plan that got me back to you,” he said quietly.
Her throat tightened. “I believe that.”
He nodded once and stepped back, as though he knew better than to reach for what the sentence gave him. Annie closed the car door. As she drove away, she saw him in the rearview mirror, standing alone in the parking lot while leaves skittered around his shoes.