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.
She did all 127,000 plus penalties. But there was more. More? The forensic investigator found additional accounts. Smaller ones harder to trace.
Another 43,000 scattered across various institutions. Money Rachel had been hiding for even longer. Did you confront her about it? No. I documented it, showed it to Sandra, and we decided to let it go.
David stared at me. You let her keep 43,000 that she stole from you. I let her keep her escape fund because I realized I stopped trying to articulate something I'd been feeling. I realized that taking everything would make me feel powerful, but it wouldn't make me feel better. And at some point, revenge stops being justice and becomes just cruelty.
So, I drew a line. She returned the money she hid during our marriage. She accepted the 7,030 split and I let her keep the accounts I legally could have claimed but morally felt belong to her fear more than my anger. That's James that's incredibly mature or incredibly stupid. I'm not sure which.
It's both, but mostly it's you choosing to be the person you want to be instead of the person the situation tried to make you. Maybe. Or maybe I was just tired of fighting. Tired of evidence and accusations and carefully deployed truths. Tired of winning battles that left me feeling hollowed out instead of vindicated.
We finished breakfast, David eating, me picking, and walked out into February snow that was already turning to slush. He hugged me goodbye in the parking lot. That brief masculine embrace that communicated everything words couldn't. You're going to be okay, he said. I know it doesn't feel like it yet, but you will be.