She looked up.
“What?”
“How long have you been sleeping with Callum?”
Her face changed.
“We haven’t been—”
I placed the Manhattan restaurant photograph beside the first.
Then the jazz-bar image.
Then the hotel timeline.
Each page removed another possible version of the story.
Meredith stared.
“Where did you get these?”
“Elowen.”
Her head snapped up.
“What?”
“I met her this morning.”
Panic replaced everything else.
“You talked to his wife?”
“Yes.”
“What did she tell you?”
“Enough.”
Meredith stood.
“This is insane.”
“What part?”
“You two comparing notes like detectives.”
“You created the mystery.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“Sit down.”
She stared at me.
I had almost never spoken to her that way.
Not loudly.
Not threateningly.
Simply without negotiation.
She sat.
I pushed the screenshot toward her.
Nathan thinks we only started talking again after the alumni event.
Good. Elowen thinks the same.
Then keep it that way.
Meredith read it.
Her face emptied.
I said:
“Eighteen months.”
She looked away.
“How long?”
Silence.
“Meredith.”
“About nineteen.”
One more month.
I nodded.
“Physical?”
“Not immediately.”
“How long?”
“Maybe sixteen months.”
I leaned back.
The numbers became almost abstract.
“And the alumni fundraiser?”
“Cover.”
The word came out barely audible.
“You arranged to appear to reconnect there.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“So people would understand why we were talking.”
“People meaning me and Elowen.”
“Yes.”
I laughed once.
Meredith’s eyes filled.
“I’m sorry.”
“Not yet.”
She looked at me.
“I’m not ready for that sentence.”
She covered her mouth.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then I asked:
“Was this really your last night?”
She nodded.
“You and Callum had already decided to end it?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“About six weeks ago.”
Exactly when she confessed to “unresolved feelings.”
I stared.
“So the night you sat here and told me you had feelings for him…”
She started crying.
“…you had already been sleeping with him for over a year.”
“Yes.”
“And you had already decided the affair was ending.”
“Yes.”
“So what was that conversation?”
Meredith wiped her face.
“I was trying to transition back.”
I did not understand the words at first.
“Back?”
“To us.”
I stared at her.
“You were transitioning back to our marriage.”
“I know how it sounds.”
“No, I don’t think you do.”
“Nathan—”