Rebecca advised me not to act as Sabrina's messenger to Nora and not to speculate about what anybody at Ellison & Pike had been told. If I had personal records relevant to shared finances, I should preserve them. If somebody asked me to participate in a workplace investigation, I could decide whether to give a truthful account through appropriate channels. I told Sabrina I was not responsible for what Nora said about her own marriage and that I would discuss counseling after I had more time.
Sabrina called within a minute. "You're talking to her, aren't you?"
"Yes. We had coffee."
"You barely know her."
"That's true."
"And you're giving her information about me."
I stared at the dashboard. "Nora already knows who was in the hotel room, Sabrina. I didn't need to explain that."
"That's not the point. Colin says she's trying to destroy his career."
"Did he explain how?"
"She has been asking questions about work expenses. There are confidentiality rules. You don't understand the risk she's taking."
"I understand that somebody seems much more concerned about company expenses than about two marriages."
Sabrina made an angry sound. "You're enjoying this. You finally get to be the injured party while everybody tells you how wonderful and calm you are."
I let that sit between us. Maybe there was a part of me that liked hearing she was afraid of losing control. I wasn't proud of it, but I could admit it to myself without accepting her accusation as the whole truth. I told her I wasn't enjoying anything and ended the call before we could begin another circle of blame.
That evening I visited my mother. Lorraine Lawson lived in a narrow house in West Philadelphia where the kitchen still smelled of onions and dish soap and the same cinnamon tea she'd made when Tessa and I came home from school. She had worked as a public-school secretary for thirty years and could tell when somebody was hiding a problem by the excessive politeness of their greeting. I lasted less than five minutes before she asked me to sit down.
I told her the facts without dramatizing them. She listened with her hands folded on the table, occasionally pressing one thumb against the other. When I finished, she got up, refilled the kettle, and asked whether I wanted the chair by the radiator. It was the closest thing to tenderness she could manage while she sorted through her own anger.
"You can love somebody and still need to leave them," she said at last. "And you can be angry with somebody you once loved without turning the rest of your life into a punishment for them."
"You sound like Rebecca."
"Then Rebecca probably knows what she's doing." My mother sat down.
"But I'm your mother, so I'll say one thing your lawyer won't. You don't have to be the bigger person every minute. You can be hurt. You can go home and cry in the shower. Just don't confuse being hurt with having permission to hurt anybody you can reach."