Chapter 3: What She Claimed to Know
I didn't move.
Thora was still pressed against my chest.
I could feel her breathing — small, careful breaths, like a child who had learned not to make noise.
"Say that again," I said.
Heloise set her phone down on the counter.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
"Miriam," she said.
"Your wife.
My oldest friend." She tilted her head.
"Did you think I came here just to help you?"
"I think you came here to take what you could."
"I came here because Miriam asked me to." She crossed her arms.
"Before she d*ed.
She called me.
She was worried about you.
About what you'd do without her.
About what would happen to Thora." She paused.
"She didn't trust you to manage alone."
The words landed like something physical.
"That's a lie."
"Is it?" She walked to the kitchen drawer and pulled it open.
From beneath a stack of papers she produced an envelope.
Cream-colored.
Handwritten.
"She wrote to me.
Three weeks before the end.
She told me things about this marriage that you would not want your lawyer to read."
I looked at the envelope.
My wife's handwriting on the front.
Heloise's name.
"Whatever is in that envelope," I said, "you put it there."
"A jury might disagree." She set it on the counter between us.
"I'm not your enemy, Daniel.
I never was.
But you just pushed me onto the floor in front of your daughter.
So now we are in a different conversation."
Thora made a small sound.
I shifted her to my hip and kept my eyes on Heloise.
"What do you want?"
"What I'm owed." She smoothed the envelope's edge with one finger.
"Half the house.
My name stays on the trust.
You travel, I manage.
We continue exactly as we have been — except now you understand the arrangement clearly."
"You hurt my daughter."
"Children need discipline."
"She is five years old." My voice dropped.
"She was sleeping on the floor."
"She was being dramatic." Heloise waved her hand.
"She has a perfectly good bedroom.
She chose to follow me around.
I gave her something useful to do."
I looked at Thora's cheek.
The red mark had darkened.
"You are going to leave this house tonight," I said.
"I am going to do no such thing."
"You are going to leave.
And tomorrow morning I am calling a solicitor."
Heloise smiled.
It was the same smile from before — the one with nothing warm behind it.
"Call whoever you like." She picked up the envelope.
"But before you do, you should know that I am not the only one who has read this letter."
She tucked it back into the drawer and pushed it shut.
May you like
"Miriam had other friends," she said.
"And some of them are willing to speak."
