Part 2 Five years into my marriage, my husband looked across our anniversary dinner and said, “I wish you weren’t my wife.”9 005 - Puretale

It was to my sister.

At 5:17 the next morning, I sat on the edge of the guest bed in my own house with my shoes still on and called the one person who had spent five years refusing to tell me what I wanted to hear.

Evelyn answered on the fourth ring.

“Clara?”

Her voice was thick with sleep, then instantly alert.

“Are you okay?”

I stared through the window at the dark outline of the live oak in our backyard.

“No.”

There was a pause.

Not dramatic.

Not surprised.

Just quiet.

“What happened?”

“He’s been seeing someone.”

The words sounded strange once they existed outside my head.

Evelyn inhaled softly.

“How long?”

“Eight months.”

Another pause.

“And he told you?”

“Eventually.”

I rubbed the place on my finger where my wedding ring had been.

“He also told me he wished I wasn’t his wife.”

“Oh, Clara.”

I closed my eyes.

I did not want sympathy.

Sympathy felt dangerous. It threatened the thin layer of composure that had carried me from the restaurant to my car, from my car to our house, and from the front door to the guest room while Nathan followed twenty minutes later and slept—or pretended to sleep—in our bedroom.

“I need the number for the lawyer you used when you and Peter separated,” I said.

Evelyn became fully awake.

“Rebecca?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure I want information.”

That distinction mattered to me.

I was not calling to destroy anything.

I was calling because for the first time in years, I wanted to know where I stood.

Evelyn gave me the number.

Then she said, “Can I come over?”

“No.”

“Clara.”

“I mean it. Not yet.”

“You don’t have to handle this alone.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

I looked toward the hallway.

Nathan was somewhere on the other side of the wall in the room where we had chosen paint together, argued over nightstands, folded laundry on Sunday afternoons, and once spent an entire rainy morning discussing whether we could afford to replace the roof.

Five years of marriage.

Seven years of knowing him.

Eight months of another woman.

“I’m learning,” I said.

After we hung up, I saved Rebecca Hale’s number in my phone.

At 8:03, I called.

By 10:30, I was sitting in a quiet office on Broad Street across from a woman in her late fifties with silver-framed glasses and the kind of attentive expression that made exaggeration feel unnecessary.

Rebecca did not tell me what to do.

I liked her immediately for that.

She asked questions.

Did we have children?

No.

Property?

The house. Two cars. Retirement accounts. Nathan’s company.

Joint accounts?

Some.

Separate accounts?

Yes.

Debts?

A mortgage, business obligations I did not fully understand, and an equipment loan that Nathan had once described as “temporary.”

Rebecca made notes.

“And your involvement in the company?”

I almost said none.

Then I stopped.

“In what sense?”

“Ownership. Employment. Investment.”

“I don’t work there.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

I folded my hands in my lap.

“When Nathan started Carter Coastal Development, I helped him.”

“How?”

The answer came slowly because I had not thought of those years as labor for a very long time.

“I built the first website. I handled invoices before he hired an office manager. I wrote proposals. I helped prepare bid packets. I did bookkeeping on weekends.”

“Were you paid?”

I gave a short laugh.

“No.”

“Did you contribute money?”

“My savings.”

Rebecca looked up.

“How much?”

“Thirty-two thousand dollars.”

The amount had once represented nearly everything I had.

After my mother died, she left Evelyn and me modest inheritances. Evelyn put hers toward her mortgage.

I gave most of mine to Nathan.

At the time, he had refused.

For almost a week.

Then one night we sat on the kitchen floor of his old apartment eating takeout Thai food because he had sold his dining table to cover payroll.

“I believe in you,” I had told him.

He stared at the check.

“Clara, if this goes wrong—”

“Then it goes wrong.”

“This is your mother’s money.”

“My mother spent her whole life telling me money should make a life better, not sit in a bank account making you afraid to touch it.”

He had cried that night.

Nathan almost never cried.

He kissed my hands and promised me that if the company ever became worth anything, we would both know who had helped build it.

I had forgotten that promise.

Or perhaps I had simply stopped expecting anyone else to remember it.

Rebecca tapped her pen lightly against her notebook.

“Did you sign anything when you invested?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Any ownership agreement?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

“Do you have access to old records?”

“Probably. Nathan keeps everything.”

“Then don’t remove or alter anything. Don’t access systems you aren’t authorized to access. But collect copies of financial records that already belong to you or that you ordinarily receive—tax returns, household statements, property records.”

My stomach tightened.

“This feels awful.”

“It often does.”

“I don’t want to ruin him.”

Rebecca removed her glasses.

“Clara, understanding your legal and financial position is not the same thing as ruining your husband.”

Husband.

The word hurt more than I expected.

“What if I don’t know whether I want a divorce?”

“Then you don’t decide today.”

“But I left my ring on the table.”

“A ring isn’t paperwork.”

I looked down.

Rebecca continued gently.

“You had a devastating conversation less than twenty-four hours ago. You’re allowed to gather information before making permanent decisions.”

I almost told her that permanent was exactly what I had wanted when I walked out of the restaurant.

Nathan had made a wish.

I had intended to grant it.

But daylight had complicated my certainty.

Not because I loved him less.

Because I had loved him for too long to believe one terrible evening contained every truth about us.

When I returned home just after noon, Nathan’s car was in the driveway.

He was sitting at the kitchen table.

My wedding ring lay in front of him.

So did the unopened anniversary gift.

He stood when I entered.

“Where were you?”

I set my purse down.

“I met with a lawyer.”

His face emptied.

I watched the sentence reach him.

Not as a threat.

As a fact.

“You called a lawyer already?”

“Yes.”

“Clara, it hasn’t even been a day.”

“You had eight months.”

His shoulders fell.

There was nothing he could say to that.

For a few moments, we stood six feet apart in the kitchen where we had once danced while waiting for pasta water to boil.

Nathan finally looked at the ring.

“I didn’t sleep.”

“Neither did I.”

“I kept replaying last night.”

“So did I.”

“I shouldn’t have said what I said.”

I pulled out the chair opposite him but did not sit.

“Which part?”

He flinched.

“That’s fair.”

“I’m not trying to be clever.”

“I know.”

“Then which part?”

He looked exhausted.

The immaculate version of Nathan that appeared in investor meetings and charity photographs was gone. His shirt was wrinkled, his hair uncombed.

“I shouldn’t have said I wished you weren’t my wife.”

“Because you didn’t mean it?”

His silence answered first.

Then he said, “Because it was cruel.”

I nodded.

It was not the answer some part of me had wanted.

But at least it was honest.

“And Victoria?”

He looked toward the window.

“It’s over.”

I almost smiled.

Not because it was funny.

Because the sentence was so absurdly inadequate.

“You ended an eight-month affair sometime between midnight and breakfast and thought that was information I needed?”

“No.”

“Then why tell me?”

“Because I don’t want to lie anymore.”

I finally sat.

Nathan sat across from me.

“What happened?” I asked.

“With Victoria?”

“With us.”

His mouth tightened.

“I don’t know.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Because I don’t have one answer.”

“Try.”

He rested his forearms on the table.

“At first I thought it was work. The company got bigger. There were people depending on me. Every mistake felt expensive.”

“I was there.”

“I know.”

“No, Nathan. You were busy. I was there. Those are not the same thing.”

He stared at me.

I continued.

“I watched you stop eating breakfast. I watched you answer emails at two in the morning. I watched you become angry every Sunday because Monday was coming. I tried talking to you.”

“I know.”

“You told me it was temporary.”

“I thought it was.”

“And Victoria?”

His jaw shifted.

“She worked with us on the Harbor Street project.”

I knew the project.

Everyone in Charleston seemed to know it.

Carter Coastal had spent nearly two years converting a neglected warehouse near the old industrial waterfront into office and retail space. The project had changed the company.

Nathan had gone from a local contractor trying to prove himself to a developer whose name appeared in business magazines.

“What does she do?”

“Commercial interiors.”

I remembered a name from one of Nathan’s company dinners.

Lane Design Studio.

“You met her through work.”

“Yes.”

“And then?”

He rubbed his palms together.

“We talked.”

“Remarkable beginning.”

“Clara.”