And how much was performance? I don't even know anymore. David reached across the table, gripped my hand. The love you felt was real. Maybe hers wasn't.
Or maybe it was real, and she destroyed it anyway. But your love, your commitment, your effort, that was all real. Don't let her betrayal make you doubt yourself. I wanted to believe that. Wanted to think that my half of the marriage had value even if hers didn't.
But it was hard to trust my own memories when the person who shared them had rewritten the whole story. What happened with the HR investigation? David asked, changing the subject. They fired both of them, Rachel and Marcus. Time sheet fraud plus ethics violations.
It was in the company memo last month. How do you know? You don't work there. Sarah forwarded it to me. She thought I'd want to know.
I picked up my pancakes. Marcus moved to Seattle, apparently. Took a job with a tech startup starting over. Rachel's still here living with her parents, working temp jobs while she figures out what's next. Have you seen her?
Once at the grocery store, we made eye contact across the produce section, and I watched her decide whether to approach me. She didn't just turned around and walk the other way. How did that feel? Like seeing a ghost, like encountering someone who used to matter, who used to be central to my life, and realizing they're just another person now, a stranger who happens to know where I'm ticklish and how I take my coffee. We sat in silence for a while.
David eating his omelette. Me not eating my pancakes. Both of us watching snow fall outside the window. What comes next? David asked finally.
Now that it's officially over, now that you're officially single? What's the plan? I don't know. I've spent 3 months focused on ending things. I haven't thought much about beginning again.
Maybe it's time to start thinking about it. Maybe. But the truth was I didn't know how to begin again. Didn't know how to date after 12 years of marriage. Didn't know how to trust someone new when the person I trusted most had betrayed me so completely.
Didn't know how to open myself to vulnerability again when vulnerability had cost me so much. There's something I haven't told you, I said suddenly. About the offshore account, about the hidden money. David set down his fork. I thought Rachel returned all of it as part of the settlement.