Chapter 7: What Margaret Said When She Was Afraid
"Olivia." Her voice was different.
The authority was gone.
What was left sounded older, and smaller.
"I need to speak with you.
Not through lawyers.
Just us."
"All right," I said.
"Not on the phone.
In person."
I looked at Rebecca.
She was already shaking her head.
"I can meet you somewhere public," I said.
"Somewhere neutral."
A pause.
"The café on Birchwood.
The one near the old library.
Do you know it?"
"I know it."
"Tomorrow.
Ten o'clock."
I arrived nine minutes early and took a table near the window where I could see the door.
I ordered coffee I didn't particularly want and watched the street.
Margaret arrived exactly on time.
She was dressed more quietly than usual — a gray coat, no jewelry except small pearl earrings.
She looked like she had aged since the morning in Rebecca's office, though it had only been days.
She sat down across from me without taking off her coat.
"I'm not here to fight," she said.
"I know," I said.
"I'm here because—" She stopped.
Looked at her hands on the table.
"Because I think things have gone further than Nathan understands.
And I think you're the only person who can decide how far they go from here."
"That's not accurate," I said.
"Some of this is already out of my hands."
Her eyes came up.
"The fraud."
"Yes."
She was quiet for a moment.
A couple at the next table laughed at something.
Margaret didn't seem to hear them.
"I didn't know about the loan," she said.
"I want you to believe that."
"What did you know about?"
She folded her hands.
"I knew about Cara.
I knew for about a year." She said it flatly, without drama.
"Nathan told me it wasn't serious.
That it was already over.
I told him he needed to end it completely and fix things with you." She looked at the window.
"He told me he had."
"He hadn't."
"No."
"And the money?
The forty thousand?"
"I knew he was struggling.
I didn't know he'd taken it from your account." She paused.
"I thought he was borrowing from a private source.
He told me he had investors."
"He did," I said.
"He invested our emergency fund into a company he was using to commit bank fraud.
That was his investor."
Margaret flinched.
It was small, but it was real.
"The Europe trip," I said.
"The twenty-eight thousand."
She looked at me.
"Was that your idea or his?"
A long pause.
"Mine," she said quietly.
"I thought — I thought if we could have something good happen, something to look forward to, it might give Nathan time to sort things out before you noticed." She stopped.
"I know how that sounds."
"It sounds like you were trying to buy time using my money."
She didn't deny it.
"Margaret," I said.
"Why are you here?
What do you actually want from this conversation?"
She looked at me steadily.
For the first time, I saw something in her face that wasn't calculation or performance.
It was fear.
Real fear.
"I don't want my son to go to prison," she said.
The word sat between us.
"I can't control what the authorities do," I said.
"That process has already started."
"I know." Her voice dropped.
"But you could speak to what you know and don't know.
You could—"
"Margaret." I set my cup down.
"I will tell the truth.
Exactly what I know, exactly what I can prove.
That's all I can promise you."
Her eyes were bright.
She didn't let anything fall.
"He's still your husband," she said.
"He told me to get out of my own house," I said.
"And then he went back to it."
She had no answer for that.
I left first.
Walking to my car, I heard her call my name once from the café doorway.
I didn't turn around.
That evening, Rebecca called.
"Gerald filed this afternoon," she said.
"The formal complaint is in.
Nathan will be notified within forty-eight hours."
I sat down on the edge of the bed in my hotel room.
"Okay," I said.
"Olivia — are you all right?"
I thought about Margaret's face.
The pearl earrings.
The gray coat.
The way she'd said *he's still your husband* like it was an argument that should have worked.
May you like
"Yes," I said.
"I'm all right."
