Patrick stared at the lot.
“He never asked.”
“Yeah,” Matthew said. “That tracks.”
They did not hug. They exchanged numbers. Patrick drove back on the same highway Frank had used for thirty years and understood the mileage in his hands.
The lawyer’s name was Judith Hahn. She did not waste Margaret’s time.
“You can stay married and broke of trust,” Judith said. “You can divorce and keep the house. You can take the garage box as evidence of concealment in a long marriage. Judges are not shocked by Dayton. They are interested in money.”
Margaret brought the ten pages and the photograph. Judith made copies. Frank’s company books showed cash withdrawals that matched weekends. Not theft from the joint account in a way that would make a headline. A budget for a second refrigerator. Margaret felt the same cold Nia Carter had felt in another story in another city: he had afforded two lives on purpose.
She told Judith that.
Judith said, “Purpose is the word we like.”
Frank signed what he was asked to sign. He did not fight the house. He asked to keep the company. Margaret said he could keep the company if the numbers were clean going forward. She did not want the company. She wanted the peonies and the dining table and the right to take the balloons down herself.
Patrick helped her with the balloons on a Sunday. They popped some. They bagged the rest. Margaret said, “I should have taken them down the night of.”
Patrick said, “You had other work.”
They did not discuss whether the gift box had been cruel. The gift box had been true. Cruel and true can share a lid.
Frank moved into a one-bedroom near his shop. He was seventy and he bought a single plate and a single mug and hated the sound of them. He called Margaret on Tuesdays because Judith’s papers said Tuesday for logistics. He did not call her Peggy. He said the furnace filter. He said the insurance. She said yes or no. The calls lasted four minutes.
He called Christine on Thursdays. Sometimes she answered. Sometimes Matthew answered and said she was out. Josh did not answer Frank for six months. When he did he said, “You stood up at a party and called us a mistake.”
Frank said, “I said I made a mistake.”
“Same sentence from where I sit.”