Chapter 3 - The Money Beneath the Fishing Trip
I had known my husband was having an affair for less than an hour when I discovered he'd also been hiding money from me.
Julian stood in our doorway, looking at his mother as if she'd opened a door he desperately wanted closed.
“How do you know about Dad?”
Diane didn't answer immediately.
She sat down.
Then she looked toward me.
“Your father-in-law contacted me six months ago.”
I frowned.
“Leonard?”
She nodded.
“He wanted money for a hospitality investment.”
Julian shook his head.
“That's not what this is.”
Diane ignored him.
“He told me he'd found an investor willing to develop a small luxury lodge near the lake.”
I thought about the photographs.
The expensive boat.
The resort terrace.
Lena in her white sundress.
I looked at Julian.
“How much?”
He stared at the floor.
I repeated the question.
“How much money did you invest?”
“Twelve thousand.”
My heart started pounding.
“From where?”
He didn't answer.
I already knew.
Our emergency savings.
The account we opened before the twins were born.
The money I'd saved from freelance design projects.
Money intended to cover medical bills, home repairs, and unexpected expenses while I wasn't working.
I handed Nora to Diane and opened our banking application.
The balance loaded.
My stomach dropped.
A transfer of $12,600 appeared three weeks earlier.
Recipient: Breakwater Ventures.
I'd seen it before.
When I asked Julian about it, he'd said it was a temporary transfer related to an annual insurance payment.
I'd believed him.
I turned the phone toward him.
“You lied about this too.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“It's an investment, Audrey. We'll get the money back.”
“Was Lena part of the investment?”
He hesitated.
“Yes.”
Diane slowly rose.
“Leonard told me he had no other investors.”
Julian looked at her.
“He didn't know how to explain everything.”
She stared at him.
“Your father knows exactly how to explain things when he wants money.”
That was the first time I'd heard real anger in her voice.
Julian tried to take my phone.
I moved it away.
“Don't.”
He stopped.
I looked down at the balance.
The emergency account wasn't empty.
But more than half of it was gone.
For months, I'd been cutting coupons.
Buying secondhand baby clothes.
Turning down freelance projects because Julian said we needed me home full-time.
Meanwhile, he was spending our savings on a business venture connected to his father and his mistress.
I felt foolish.
Then angry.
Then exhausted.
Caroline touched my shoulder.
“We're leaving.”
I nodded.
Diane handed Nora back to me.
Julian followed us outside.
“Audrey, please. We need to talk.”
“We will.”
“When?”
“When I'm ready, with the information I need.”
He looked at the girls.
“Can I hold Ivy?”
I hesitated.
Then I passed her to him carefully.
He held her awkwardly against his chest.
She looked up at him.
For several seconds, his expression softened.
“Hey, sweetheart.”
Ivy grabbed his collar.
He smiled.
The sight nearly broke me.
Because I remembered the man in the ultrasound room.
The man who had cried when he learned we were expecting twins.
I remembered how he held Ivy on the day she was born.
That man was still somewhere inside the person standing in front of me.
But I couldn't build our children's future around hoping he would reappear.
After a moment, Julian handed her back.
“Call me when you get there.”
I nodded.
Diane drove.
Caroline followed in her car with the diaper bags.
I sat between the girls' car seats in the back.
Both babies fell asleep before we reached the highway.
I watched the streetlights slide across their faces.
Diane glanced at me in the mirror.
“Are you all right?”
“No.”
She nodded.
“That's fair.”
We didn't speak for several minutes.
Then I asked, “Why did Leonard leave you?”
Her hands tightened on the steering wheel.
“He said he wasn't ready for family life.”
I looked down.
The words sounded painfully familiar.
“He wanted to start a business. Travel. Be successful.”
“Did he come back?”
“Sometimes.”
She turned onto a quiet residential street.
“Usually when he needed something.”
I stared at her reflection.
“Does Julian know?”
“He knows pieces.”
“Why didn't you tell him everything?”
Diane sighed.
“Because I didn't want him to grow up believing his father didn't love him.”
I understood that instinct.
I already wanted to protect Ivy and Nora from the truth about Julian.
But Diane's next words stayed with me.
“I thought hiding Leonard's failures would keep Julian from being hurt. Instead, I think it taught him that adults don't have to explain what they do.”
We reached her house.
It was a modest two-story home with white siding and a little garden.
Diane had prepared two portable cribs in the guest room.
Clean sheets.
A changing station.
Diapers in the correct sizes.
A basket of soft washcloths.
I stared.
“When did you do all this?”
“Yesterday.”
I looked at her.
“Yesterday?”
She smiled sadly.
“I hoped you wouldn't need it.”
I started crying.
Diane hugged me.
Not awkwardly.
Not politely.
She held me the way I'd wanted my own mother to hold me when I was exhausted.
My mother had died five years earlier.
I'd missed her every day since the twins were born.
Now I cried into Diane's shoulder until I had no tears left.
The next morning, Caroline arrived with breakfast and a recommendation for a family attorney.
We agreed I should obtain advice before making any major financial or parenting decisions.
While the girls slept, I gathered documents.
Bank statements.
Our mortgage information.
Joint account records.
Texts about the fishing trip.
Then I opened our shared household email account.
A message from Breakwater Ventures appeared.
Subject: Investment Authorization—Additional Signature Required.
I opened it.
Attached was a proposed agreement.
My name appeared beside Julian's.
The document identified me as a proposed guarantor.
I stared at the screen.
Then I scrolled down.
There was a signature.
My signature.
But I had never signed anything.
And the property listed as additional security wasn't our marital home.
May you like
It was my mother's cottage.
The only place she had left me when she died.
