Chapter 6: What Selina Knew
She didn't pretend to be surprised when I sat down beside her.
We were at the far end of the pool, away from the remaining guests, away from the house.
The afternoon light had gone amber.
Someone had quietly turned the party music back on at low volume — the kind of thing people do when they don't know what else to do.
"I didn't know about the money," Selina said.
She was looking at the water.
"Not the full amount.
Not what he'd done at the firm."
"But you knew something."
"I knew Marcus was helping Julian with something he was ashamed of." She paused.
"He told me it was a financial mess Julian had made and that the family needed to handle it quietly.
He said it wasn't illegal." A short, humorless breath.
"He was wrong about that last part, I think."
"Probably," I said.
She turned to look at me for the first time.
Up close, without the party around her, she looked less like the untouchable goddess Julian had described and more like a woman who was very tired.
"I want you to know," she said, "that I never — not once — looked at your husband the way he talked about me to you."
"I know that now."
"I was uncomfortable every time he did it.
In front of you, in front of Marcus.
I told Marcus it needed to stop." She looked back at the water.
"Marcus said Julian didn't mean it.
That it was just how he talked." She paused.
"I should have said something to you directly.
I didn't.
And I'm sorry for that."
I sat with that apology for a moment.
It was genuine.
I could tell the difference, after two years of learning what the other kind sounded like.
"Why did you come tonight?" I asked.
"If you knew something was wrong.
If you were uncomfortable."
"Because Marcus asked me to." She said it simply.
"And because I thought — I genuinely thought — that if I was there, maybe nothing would explode." She looked at me sideways.
"I was wrong about that too."
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
"The broker," I said.
"Steven Carr.
Do you know him?"
"I've heard the name.
I've never met him."
"Do you know how much money moved through those accounts?"
She shook her head.
"Marcus kept me away from the details.
He said the less I knew, the better." Her voice tightened slightly on that last sentence.
"I understand now that was not actually for my protection."
"No," I said.
"It wasn't."
She nodded slowly.
Like she'd already worked that out and was just hearing it confirmed.
We sat quietly for a moment.
The filter hummed.
Someone near the house laughed at something — a leftover reflex from a party that no longer existed.
"What are you going to do?" Selina asked.
"Meet with my lawyer Monday.
Get full access to the accounts.
Find out exactly how much is missing and where it went."
"And Julian?"
"That depends on what I find Monday."
She nodded again.
Then, carefully: "Marcus is going to want to protect him."
"I know."
"He'll say it's a family matter.
That it can be resolved privately.
That going to the authorities would destroy everyone, not just Julian."
"He might be right about that last part," I said.
"He might be." She looked at me directly.
"But you should know — I won't ask you to stay quiet to protect Marcus.
What Julian did to you, the two years you worked while he lied to your face — that's not something a wife should be asked to absorb quietly." She held my gaze.
"Whatever you decide, I'll support it."
I looked at her for a long moment.
The woman Julian had used as a weapon against me for two years.
The woman I had resented without ever speaking to.
"Thank you," I said.
She turned back to the water.
"I'm going to have my own conversation with Marcus tonight."
The way she said it — quiet, final, decided — told me that conversation was going to be a long one.
I stood up.
My legs were still steady.
Inside the kitchen, through the glass, I could see Julian and Dorothy still at the table.
Julian was talking.
Dorothy was listening with her hands folded and her face very still.
Marcus was standing at the counter with his back to the room, looking at his phone.
I watched him for a moment.
He typed something.
Set the phone face-down on the counter.
Then picked it up again and stared at the screen.
I thought about what Julian had said as I walked away from the party.
She doesn't know about the money yet.
I knew about the money now.
Julian had told me — or rather, he'd told me his version of it.
The version where he was a man trying to fix a mistake, not a man who had built a two-year architecture of lies while I paid the mortgage and fed the children and wore myself down to nothing.
But there was still something I didn't have.
I didn't have the number.
The actual amount.
The real total.
Not what Julian admitted to, but what the accounts would show when someone looked at all of them, together, without Julian in the room explaining them.
Monday couldn't come fast enough.
I went back inside.
Julian looked up when I entered.
"We need to talk," he said.
"We will," I said.
"Monday."
"Nora, if you go to a lawyer before we have a chance to—"
"Monday, Julian."
He stood up.
"I need you to hear me out first.
Before you make any decisions.
There are things you don't understand yet, and if you walk into that office without—"
"Sit down."
He sat.
I picked up my bag from the counter.
"I'm taking the children to my sister's tonight.
I'll be back Sunday evening to collect some things.
Monday morning I have an appointment."
"You're leaving?"
"I'm giving us both space to think clearly."
"Nora—" His voice cracked slightly on my name.
Just slightly.
"Please."
I looked at him.
Seven years of marriage.
Two children.
Two years of working myself hollow while he built a lie elaborate enough to need a private broker and a hotel meeting and his mother's silence.
"I'll see you Sunday," I said.
I walked out of the kitchen.
Through the hallway.
Out the front door.
My car was in the driveway.
May you like
I sat in it for exactly thirty seconds before I started the engine.
Then I drove to my sister's house, and for the first time in two years, I did not think about what Julian needed.
