Chapter 8 - EIGHTEEN YEARS
The divorce took fourteen months.
People kept asking:
“Was it because of Angela?”
Yes.
And no.
If David had confessed to one affair after eighteen years, I do not know what I would have done.
Maybe divorce.
Probably.
But that was not the marriage I discovered.
I discovered a husband who had:
Secretly formed a company.
Hidden debt.
Used joint money without informed agreement.
Participated in obtaining financing against our home through documents bearing a signature I did not make.
Allowed my best friend’s phone to help verify that transaction.
Then spent fifteen days with her in Arizona while telling me he was at a conference.
The sex hurt.
The paperwork terrified me.
At mediation, David said:
“I never wanted you to lose the house.”
I looked at him.
“Then why did you risk it?”
“I thought Desert Vale would work.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It is.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“It’s the answer people give when they think good outcomes would have made bad consent irrelevant.”
He went quiet.
That was our marriage in one sentence.
If the project succeeded, David planned to tell me later.
I imagined the scene.
Surprise.
Look what I built for us.
Maybe he would have presented the forgery as administrative convenience.
Maybe Angela would have remained my friend.
Maybe the affair would have ended.
Maybe I would never have known.
May you like
That possibility frightened me more than getting caught had frightened him.
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