Within a few hours, the company contacted Grant. He was instructed to attend a meeting with human resources, compliance, and a finance representative. By lunchtime, according to the information Natalie later received, he had been placed on administrative leave and escorted out of the building after returning his access badge and company laptop. The security guard who accompanied him wasn't a sign that he had been convicted of anything. It was a routine precaution while the company secured its records and examined the transactions.
I heard from Celeste shortly after noon. She called while I was outside a grocery distribution warehouse, preparing to replace a faulty controller. I let the call go to voicemail because I was standing with a customer and didn't want to discuss our marriage at a loading dock.
The message came through a few minutes later, strained and hurried. "Owen, please call me. Something serious is happening at work. I need to know what Natalie told you."
I listened once, then forwarded the message to Diane because it concerned an investigation connected to our finances. Diane advised me not to speculate about what Westbridge might decide or how its employees were responding. She also reminded me that being truthful about documents I'd lawfully accessed was different from trying to influence an employer's disciplinary process. I appreciated the distinction. I did not want to become the person who used someone else's livelihood as a weapon simply because my own marriage had been injured.
Celeste called twice more that afternoon. On the second voicemail, she was angry that I wasn't answering. On the third, her voice had become small again, and she said she might have to meet with human resources the next day. I texted once to say that I was working, that our legal and financial matters could be discussed through Diane, and that she should speak honestly with the people reviewing her employment records. I did not mention Grant. I did not need to.
Natalie called me that evening. She said the compliance officer had asked follow-up questions about the travel expenses and explained that her own lawyer was assisting with any further communications. She sounded exhausted but determined, and I recognized the same mixture of feelings I'd heard in myself at the start of the week. She asked whether I had decided where I would live. I said I was still working through the lease and would probably stay in the apartment until we had a temporary arrangement.
"I wish I knew how to make the next month less awful," she said. I told her I couldn't offer much advice because I was struggling with the same question. She said that she'd always believed she could identify dishonesty from small changes in behavior, yet Grant had been lying while eating dinner at the same table and helping their son with homework. I told her the evidence didn't mean those ordinary moments had never happened. It meant those moments had existed alongside something neither of us had known about.
Before hanging up, Natalie told me she had spoken with her own attorney. She was considering divorce, although she wanted to make sure the first decisions protected her son from being pulled into adult arguments. I told her I hoped she had support from friends and family. She said she had called her sister that morning and cried for twenty minutes without being asked to explain a single detail. I envied her that relief, and then felt grateful that my own mother had given me the same gift two days earlier.