Chapter 5 - WHOSE CHILDREN?
Benjamin called that afternoon.
Catherine let Grace put him on speaker.
“You changed the locks.”
“Yes.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Grace will coordinate access to your belongings.”
“This is my residence.”
“That issue can be handled properly.”
“You’re acting insane.”
Catherine almost smiled.
It had taken less than twenty-four hours for him to reach that word.
“Who paid Margot’s prenatal bills?”
Silence.
Then:
“What?”
“Forty-seven thousand dollars went from my renovation account to her or expenses connected to her.”
“She needed help.”
“You told me they were contractor payments.”
“I was trying to avoid a fight.”
“Why would helping a family friend cause a fight?”
“Because you’re doing exactly this.”
Circular logic.
Catherine continued.
“Whose children are they?”
Benjamin laughed.
Too loudly.
“Jesus Christ.”
“Answer.”
“They’re Margot’s.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
He went silent.
Grace wrote something on her legal pad.
Catherine could hear him breathing.
Finally Benjamin said:
“You’re making accusations with no basis.”
“Then correct me.”
He hung up.
Catherine stared at the phone.
Grace closed her pen.
“That wasn’t a denial.”
“No.”
“It also isn’t proof.”
“I know.”
The first proof came from Margot.
Not willingly.
Her attorney contacted Grace two days later.
Margot wanted to retrieve two bags left at the house.
She also wanted to correct “certain misunderstandings before Benjamin made them worse.”
Catherine agreed to a meeting with counsel present.
Margot arrived alone.
No red dress.
No dramatic entrance.
Just an exhausted thirty-one-year-old woman who looked as though she had not slept since Catherine came home.
She placed her hands on the conference table.
“The baby is Benjamin’s.”
Catherine felt nothing at first.
Not because the sentence did not hurt.
Because her body had already spent two days preparing for it.
“And the toddler?”
Margot closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
Two children.
Not one mistake.
May you like
Not one recent affair.
A second family that had existed through nearly half Catherine’s marriage.
