“You make everything adversarial.”
“I asked a question.”
“You make it sound ridiculous.”
“I’m trying to understand it.”
She stood and carried her coffee to the sink.
“Forget it.”
I did.
Or thought I did.
Two weeks later, I came home from work on a Thursday evening and saw two familiar cars in the driveway.
Melissa’s white Lexus.
Brooke’s dark blue Volvo.
Nothing unusual by itself.
They visited often.
What felt unusual was the silence when I opened the front door.
Usually, if all three women were in the house, I heard them before I reached the kitchen.
That night I heard nothing.
I walked toward the dining room.
Lauren sat at the table.
Melissa sat on her right.
Brooke sat across from her.
Three wine glasses stood between them.
Lauren’s laptop was open.
A yellow legal pad sat beside it.
Several printed pages were spread across the table.
I recognized one before I even took off my coat.
A bank statement.
Ours.
I put my keys in the ceramic bowl by the door.
“Should I come back later, or is the board meeting open to shareholders?”
Melissa smiled automatically.
Brooke looked down.
Lauren did not laugh.
That should have warned me.
“We actually need to talk to you,” she said.
I looked around.
“We?”
Lauren exhaled.
I removed my jacket and draped it across the back of a chair.
“What are our financial statements doing on the table?”
Lauren partially closed the laptop.
“Because I’ve made a decision.”
The wording landed immediately.
Not we need to decide.