earnings were unsupported and could cause harm to a business employing real people. The fundraising page disappeared a day later. I do not know whether the letter caused that or whether Erica realized that the donations would not cover the legal bill she was imagining, but either way it vanished without an announcement.
Monique called me that evening from a number I did not recognize. Her opening line was, "You are trying to destroy her." I was sitting in my truck outside the storage yard waiting for Ray to finish a job, and I almost let the call go unanswered. When I realized who it was, I told her I was trying to keep my finances and company obligations separate from Erica's personal decisions. She informed me that Erica had built the man I had become, and I replied that Harborline had already been operating before Erica knew my last name.
"She helped you with your image," Monique said. "She introduced you to the right people and made your success socially acceptable." I thought of Ray lying under a boat trailer in August heat, Sam working through payroll at midnight, and the first contract Peter had corrected for us before Erica and I ever met. Erica had made introductions and supported me at company events, and those contributions were real. They were not the same as having built the business, and I was tired of being told that acknowledging the distinction was an act of cruelty.
"Monique," I said, "you don't have to like me, and you don't have to agree with my decisions. But you don't get to speak on behalf of my company or tell me what happened in my marriage when you were coaching one side of it." She started to answer with another sentence about feminine power. I wished her a good evening and ended the call. Ray climbed into the passenger seat a minute later, saw my expression, and asked whether the day had brought an unusually difficult boat owner. I told him it was a different kind of expensive maintenance problem.
There were nights when I handled everything badly, at least inside my own head. I would come home from work determined not to think about Erica and spend an hour looking at the dinner table as if it owed me an explanation. I ate takeout too often, forgot to wash clothes until I needed them, and once stood in a grocery aisle holding two brands of coffee because I could not remember which one I actually liked. For years I had bought the one Erica preferred. Discovering that I could not answer a small question about my own taste was more unsettling than it should have been.
I called Peter too frequently during that period. Usually I began with a legal question and ended by asking him whether he thought Erica had ever loved me. He always reminded me that the second question was not a legal one. One afternoon he finally said, "Mark, I can tell you what the documents establish. I cannot tell you what was in your wife's heart in year three of your marriage." I knew that, but I kept wanting an answer that would make the photographs on the mantel either innocent or fraudulent, and the world did not offer one.