"I wish you'd told me before you made arrangements to move," I said.
"I couldn't live like this anymore. James says once you know what you want, you have to stop being afraid to take it."
It was the first time I heard that phrase. James says. Not the last. She spoke it with the certainty of someone quoting an expert witness in a debate. I watched her face as she told me about his penthouse at Harborview Tower and the restaurant business he was going to launch. She described a beautiful balcony overlooking the river, dinner parties with investors, and a life where she could help build something from the ground up instead of handling social media campaigns for dental offices.
"You could have built something here," I said. "You were building something here."
"I don't expect you to understand," she replied.
I nearly laughed, not because it was funny but because understanding seemed to have become the least important thing in the room. She had decided who I was: hardworking, predictable, limited. She had decided who James was: exciting, visionary, generous. She had decided the marriage was already a settled matter, and now she only needed me to accept the administrative consequences. I could see the shape of the conversation she'd rehearsed, and it had very little room for me to respond as a person.
Then she mentioned the money.
"James thinks if you're reasonable about this, we can split everything evenly and move on," she said. "The house, the savings, the other assets. There doesn't have to be a nasty fight."
"What other assets?"
She tilted her head, surprised that I needed clarification. "Your grandfather's money, Ethan. We were married when you inherited it. James says that counts."
For several seconds I could hear the refrigerator humming behind us. My grandfather's name had not been spoken aloud in our house for months, maybe a year. I didn't know James, and James didn't know me, but somehow he'd heard about a private inheritance and developed an opinion on who should own it. Suddenly Clare's departure looked less like an impulsive decision and more like a process in which an unseen person had been examining our life from the outside. The idea made my skin feel cold.
"How does James know about Grandpa's money?" I asked.
"We've talked about our future. Of course I've told him things about my life."
"About our finances?"
"Don't make it sound sinister. We want to start a business. He knows how these things work. He says you should expect the settlement to be fifty-fifty if you're decent about it."
The words came out in an almost protective rush, as though she were defending a friend unfairly accused. I looked down at my jacket, where my hand had been folded around the cottage keys since I'd first come through the door. The ribbon had pressed a small groove into my palm. Clare mistook my silence for hesitation and began explaining why a long divorce would be humiliating for both of us, why lawyers would only waste our money, why it would be better to sign papers quickly.