Chapter 5 - The Woman Beside Him
I met Corinne in Miriam’s office on Thursday.
She came with her own attorney.
That was the first sensible decision I had ever watched her make.
Without Trent beside her, she looked different.
Less polished.
More alert.
As if she had finally begun listening for the floorboards that creaked beneath her.
“I’m not asking you to trust me,” she said.
“Good.”
She accepted that without flinching.
Her attorney placed a folder on the table.
Corinne’s father had invested in Gulf Horizon two years earlier.
Trent had presented the nursery access agreement as a secure asset.
The marina expansion depended on it.
Without the entrance road and stormwater changes, the project would need major redesign.
Possibly a different site.
“Why would your father believe him?” I asked.
“Because Trent said the land belonged to his former family and that you had already agreed.”
“My former family?”
Corinne lowered her eyes.
“He said your grandmother wanted you to have the money instead of the business.”
I laughed once.
Grandma June had once refused an offer from a hotel chain because the representative called her camellias landscaping material.
She would have haunted a bulldozer.
Miriam asked Corinne what she knew about the signatures.
“Nothing directly,” Corinne said. “But I found an email.”
Her attorney supplied a copy.
It had been sent from Trent to a project consultant.
The message discussed the date of my grandmother’s acknowledgment.
One line stood apart.
Use the clean page from the insurance packet. Sienna already signed that version.
My hands turned cold.
There it was.
Not proof of every step.
But proof that he knew the signature came from somewhere else.
Corinne watched my face.
“I found it after the wedding. He left his account open on the home computer.”
“Why were you looking?”
“Because he told me Caleb was blacklisting him. Then he told my father the project was fine. Then he asked me to send a message about your daughter.”
I stared at her.
“What message?”
Her voice dropped.
“He wanted me to ask someone at the school whether you were listed as Lily’s legal mother.”
The room seemed to shrink.
I put both feet flat on the floor.
Miriam leaned forward.
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Did anyone else?”
“I don’t know.”
Corinne began crying.
I did not comfort her.
I was thinking about the school office.
The cheerful woman who knew our pickup routine.
The emergency forms.
How easily curiosity could dress itself as concern.
My daughter deserved adults who understood that her information was not a weapon.
Miriam made a note to contact the school with us.
Corinne wiped her face.
“I know what you think of me.”
“You don’t know everything I think.”
“I knew he was married.”
The words landed quietly.
“At first, he said you were separating. Later, I knew that wasn’t true. I stayed anyway.”
“Why?”
She looked at the wall.
“Because I liked being the person he said made him happy.”
For a moment, I saw the young woman at my kitchen island five years earlier.
Uncomfortable.
Almost ashamed.
I had mistaken shame for a limit.
It was not.
“I lost years wondering what you had that I didn’t,” I said.
Corinne looked back at me.
“The answer was never something wrong with me.”
“No,” she whispered. “It wasn’t.”
Outside the office, her attorney walked ahead to the elevator.
Corinne paused beside me.
“I’m leaving him.”
I looked at her.
“You don’t need my permission.”
“I know.”
“And leaving won’t erase your part.”
“I know that, too.”
For the first time, I believed she might.
That night, Caleb and I updated the school’s privacy instructions.
We confirmed authorized pickups.
We explained only what staff needed to know.
Then we sat Lily between us on the couch.
“Someone may ask questions about our family,” I told her.
“Why?”
“Because some adults are being unkind.”
She frowned.
“About Mommy Hannah?”
“No, sweetheart.”
“About you being my mom?”
I swallowed.
“Maybe.”
She looked from me to Caleb with obvious confusion.
“But you are.”
“Yes,” Caleb said. “She is.”
Lily leaned against me.
“Then they’re bad at questions.”
May you like
I held her close.
For the first time all week, I laughed without having to force it.
