Chapter 8 — Eight Days Before

She handed me a single sheet, and I read it, and the last soft part of me that had still, somehow, been making excuses for the man I married went quiet and did not speak again.

It was an email.

Dated eight days before our divorce was final.

From Damon, to Sloane.

And it said: Delia won’t check the accounts until the ink is dry on the papers. I read it several times.

There is a particular kind of pain in seeing, in a person’s own words, that the thing you feared was not paranoia but plan — that while you were signing away your marriage in good faith, believing you were at least ending it honestly, the other person was timing your grief, counting on your distraction, using the very trust that made you a decent person against you.