“Claire… what did you do? Everything’s gone.”
Daniel’s voice came through my phone so unevenly that, for a second, he barely sounded like my husband.
I looked down at our son sleeping against my chest.
Two hours earlier, Daniel had stood beside this same hospital bed and told me not to keep calling because he and his family were going out to celebrate.
Now he was the one calling me.
“What’s gone?” I asked.
“My cards aren’t working.
The business account is locked.
I tried two different payments.
Claire, what did you do?”
Restaurant noise spilled through the phone.
Plates clattered.
Someone was speaking sharply in the background.
I recognized Elaine’s voice even though I could not make out every word.
I imagined Daniel standing beside a hotpot table in the coat he had straightened before abandoning me, surrounded by the same people who had just told a woman six hours postpartum to take a bus home.
“Are you still at dinner?” I asked.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Just answer me.”
“Yes, we’re at dinner.”
I rested my head against the pillow.
“Then finish celebrating.”
His breath caught.
“Claire, this isn’t funny.”
“No,” I said.
“It isn’t.”
There was another voice behind him.
Melissa this time.
Then Daniel lowered his voice.
“The bank says there’s a hold.
They won’t tell me anything useful.
You did this, didn’t you?”
I glanced at my phone.
Martin’s confirmation was still open beneath the call screen, though Daniel could not see it.
“I made one phone call,” I said.
“To who?”
“My lawyer.”
The silence that followed was different from the silence after a cruel remark.
This one contained calculation.
Daniel knew Martin’s name, but only vaguely.
I had mentioned him before when paperwork needed reviewing.
Daniel had never been interested enough to ask why I had a lawyer who answered me immediately.
He had never been interested in many things that did not make him feel important.
“Why would you call a lawyer because I went to dinner?” he demanded.
“You didn’t just go to dinner.”
“Oh, come on.”
“You left your wife in a hospital bed six hours after she gave birth to your son.
Your mother told me to take the bus.
Your sister laughed.
Then your mother questioned whether the baby was yours.”
“That was a joke.”
“No.
It was information.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It told me exactly where I stand with all of you.”
Daniel exhaled hard.
“This is ridiculous.
