“It was a prequalification.”
“The document says application.”
“It wasn’t final.”
I placed the folder on the table and opened it to the page with the email address.
“Did you access that email as if you were me?”
She rubbed her forehead.
“I set it up. Yes.”
“Did the lender send verification links there?”
“Yes.”
“Did you click them?”
“Some of them.”
I pushed back from the table.
Vanessa raised both hands.
“Nothing funded. Nothing was signed at closing. There was no lien placed on the house.”
“That is not the point.”
“I know it looks bad.”
“It looks bad because it is bad.”
“I was trying to find out whether the investment was possible.”
“Using my identity.”
“Using our household information.”
“My Social Security number is not household information.”
She flinched.
I had not known whether she used it until that moment.
“You entered my Social Security number.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“It was on the tax return.”
I stood.
Vanessa followed.
“Please listen to me.”
“I have been listening to you for months.”
“I was never going to finalize the loan without telling you.”
“You already created a fake email and triggered a credit inquiry without telling me.”
“I thought if I could show you the numbers, you’d understand.”
“Understand what?”
“That we could actually build something.”
“We already built something.”
She looked around the kitchen.
“This?”
The contempt in that single word told me more than the affair had.
I followed her eyes around the room.
Our house was not impressive. A three-bedroom colonial in Newark’s North Ironbound edge, purchased when prices were lower and renovated slowly over the years. We had replaced the floors ourselves. I had spent two summers rebuilding the back deck. Vanessa chose the kitchen cabinets and argued for six weeks about the tile. We planted the maple together three months after closing.
For years she had called it ours.
Now it was “this.”
“What did you want, Vanessa?” I asked.
She looked away.
“I wanted more.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
“I did.”
“No. You told me the kitchen needed updating. You told me you wanted to travel more. You told me you were bored with our neighborhood. You never told me you wanted to risk eighty thousand dollars of our equity in Adrian’s project.”
“Because you would have said no.”
The words came out before she could stop them.
There it was again.
Not miscommunication.
Not neglect.