Daniel had wanted to drive to Boulder's and put Greg through a wall. Natalie had put her hand on his arm and said, If you do that, I lose every scrap of leverage I have left. I need a plan, not a scene.
So Daniel had helped her make a plan.
He told Elise this in the cabin bedroom while the cartoon music murmured faintly through the door gap. He told her about the meetings at a diner off Highway 36 where Natalie ordered tea she never drank. He told her about the attorney Daniel had found through a college friend, the one who specialized in protective orders and asset separation. He told her about the joint account Natalie couldn't touch without Greg noticing, and the cash Daniel had withdrawn from his own savings — three thousand dollars at first, then more — which Natalie kept in a coral handbag she had bought on clearance because bright things, she said, made her feel like a person who still chose her own colors.
"You gave her money," Elise said. Not a question. A ledger opening.
"Yes."
"From our savings."
"From mine, mostly. The account I kept from before we married. The one we agreed I'd use for emergencies and family." His blue eyes lifted. "She was family."
"I know she was family," Elise said, and her voice cracked on the knowing. "I loved Natalie. I sat with her in hospitals when she had that scare with her thyroid. I held her hand at Toby's baptism when she cried because she couldn't have children of her own. Do not lecture me on who she was to me."