She sat down and looked at me the right way. Not like a nurse, not like a curious visitor here for the gossip. She looked at me like a mother.
“Sophia, look at me.”
She squeezed my hand.
“You did nothing wrong.”
“I signed it,” I said softly. “I signed it anyway, Carol.”
She didn’t even blink.
“You signed it because he cornered you and because you’re smart. You weren’t going to give him a scene he could use against you, were you?”
I swallowed hard.
“He tampered with the insurance,” I said. “I just found out.”
Carol grimaced in disgust.
“Coward. That’s what weak men do.”
She took a deep breath and lowered her voice almost as if telling a secret.
“I saw him, you know,” she said.
My whole body went on alert.
“While you were in here, he came back to the building two nights in a row. And he wasn’t alone.”
I didn’t ask who with. I could already imagine.
“A young woman,” Carol continued, “pretty, perfect nails, expensive purse. She walked in laughing, laughing out loud like she owned the place.”
The image burned in my mind. It wasn’t jealousy. It was the insult because I was still in the hospital. I was still trapped in a bed and he was introducing someone else into my life as if I no longer existed.
“He told the doorman she was a friend,” Carol said, “but he was holding her by the waist. I’m not stupid.”
I closed my eyes for a second. That’s when the pain appeared. Because no matter how rational I was, I was a wife. I was a woman. I had plans. I imagined a future. And that future had been occupied by a stranger, as if I were a piece of old furniture.
“Sophia,” Carol said, cupping my face gently. “Crying doesn’t make you weaker. But you can’t cry in front of him. No.”
Now I open my eyes.
“I’m not going to cry,” I said.
And I realized it was true. I was past the point of crying. I was at the point of decision.
My phone buzzed again. A text from my husband. Just three words.
“We need to talk.”
I laughed. A silent laugh. He had kicked me out of his life in the ICU, and now he wanted to talk. I didn’t reply. I opened my banking app and saw that a transfer had been scheduled from my company’s main account. A small amount, divided, almost discreet, the kind of amount no one notices in the middle of chaos. But I noticed it. I swiped the screen and saw two more and then another. Transfers to an account I didn’t recognize. My heart grew unnaturally calm. The same man who called me a burden was using my company like his personal ATM.
I called Jessica again. She answered quickly.
“I knew you’d call back.”
“He tampered with the health insurance,” I said, “and there are scheduled transfers from the business account.”
Jessica took a deep breath.
“He’s trying to drain what he thinks is his.”
