The settlement his lawyer had sent offered me twelve thousand dollars.

By my forensic accountant’s careful, conservative, thoroughly documented count, Julian owed me over six hundred thousand — my inheritance, plus my lawful share of what the marriage had built while I ran its books.

I smiled into the phone, and I kept my voice pleasant.

“Send it to my lawyer,” I said.

There was a silence on the line, the specific silence of a man who has just heard a sound he did not expect and does not like.

And then Evelyn’s voice, snatching the phone away from her son.