Chapter 3 - The Woman in My Kitchen
I returned to the house on Tuesday morning with Meredith and a professional inventory specialist.
Meredith had arranged the visit with Trent’s attorney the previous afternoon. We were there to collect my personal belongings and document disputed property.
I had insisted on one condition.
Nobody was going to rush me through my own life.
The front door opened before I reached it.
Brooke stood inside wearing my cream-colored slippers.
She looked younger in daylight.
Not innocent. Just younger.
Her eyes moved from me to Meredith, then to the inventory specialist carrying a tablet.
“Trent said you’d already agreed.”
“To a divorce,” I replied.
Her expression shifted.
“He said you signed everything.”
“Then he should read what I signed.”
Trent appeared behind her, holding a coffee mug I had bought in Sedona during our first year together.
“You brought a lawyer?”
“You brought a girlfriend.”
Meredith stepped forward before he could answer.
“We’re here under the arrangement confirmed with your counsel, Mr. Lawson. Let’s keep this productive.”
Trent muttered something about unnecessary drama.
Then he moved aside.
The house smelled different.
Brooke had lit a sweet, heavy candle on the console table. My photographs had been removed from the hallway. A framed print I had bought from a local artist leaned against the garage wall.
On the refrigerator, someone had attached an ultrasound image with one of my souvenir magnets.
For a moment, I couldn’t move.
This was what he had meant by moving on.
He had not even waited for the rooms to cool.
Upstairs, my closet doors stood open. Three garbage bags sat beside the bed.
“What are those?” I asked.
Trent leaned against the doorway.
“Your clothes. We were helping.”
I opened the nearest bag.
A silk blouse had been stuffed beneath muddy running shoes.
Inside the second bag, I found the blue cardigan my mother had knitted before her hands became too arthritic to hold needles.
I lifted it carefully.
Brooke watched from the hallway.
“I didn’t know about that,” she said.
Trent rolled his eyes.
“They’re clothes, Harper.”
I folded the cardigan against my chest.
“You don’t get to decide what matters to me anymore.”
The inventory specialist quietly photographed the bags.
Downstairs, Meredith requested the Mercedes keys.
Trent laughed.
“No. We already discussed the car.”
“The company has withdrawn your permission to use its vehicle,” she said. “Your attorney received the written notice and collection arrangements.”
“Brooke has medical appointments.”
“She can arrange transportation.”
Brooke’s cheeks reddened.
For the first time, I wondered what version of our finances she had been given.
Trent had always enjoyed being called successful.
At restaurants, he ordered expensive wine and let the server place the check beside him. Then he slid it discreetly toward me.
At parties, he called Lawson Technology Advisory “our firm.”
I used to think that meant pride.
Now I wondered how often pride had simply been camouflage.
He tossed the keys onto the counter.
“Take it. We’ll buy something better.”
“With what?” Brooke asked.
The room went still.
Trent turned toward her.
“Not now.”
She looked at me.
“He said the business was his.”
I held her gaze.
“He works part-time as an administrative clerk for a company I don’t own.”
Her hand tightened around the edge of the counter.
“That’s not funny.”
“No,” I said. “It isn’t.”
Trent stepped between us.
“She’s trying to upset you.”
Meredith handed his attorney’s latest correspondence to him.
“We’ll address financial representations through counsel.”
He snatched the papers but didn’t read them.
As we carried my belongings outside, Brooke followed me onto the front steps.
“Did you really pay for Walt’s treatment?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Ask Trent.”
“Please.”
I looked back at the house.
“Sixty-five thousand dollars a month. For eight months.”
She stared at me.
Then she shook her head.
“No. That was an investment.”
I felt something inside me become very still.
“What investment?”
She glanced toward the open doorway.
“Gloria said you were the silent investor in Desert Bloom. She said you wanted the family to have something of its own.”
Meredith had stopped beside the car.
“Brooke,” she said gently, “if you have documents supporting that statement, you should preserve them.”
Trent shouted from inside.
“Brooke! Get away from her!”
Brooke flinched.
I recognized the movement.
It was small, automatic, almost invisible.
I had made it myself.
Before I could speak, my phone rang.
Walt’s name appeared on the screen.
I answered.
May you like
His voice sounded thin.
“Harper,” he said, “I think we need to talk about what my wife has been telling you.”
