Chapter 2

# Chapter 2: The Surprise

"Sign here, sweetheart. It's just paperwork."

Julian slid the pen across the table and smiled at me the way he always did, like I was the easiest part of his day.

Last time, I had signed without reading a single line.

This time, I picked up the first page and started at the top.

"Serena." He laughed softly. "You don't have to read it. It's boring. Tax stuff."

"Then it won't take long." I kept my eyes on the paper.

Le Marais was exactly how I remembered it. Candles, white tablecloths, a violinist near the window playing something sad. I wore the blue dress he asked for. I had even worn the pearl earrings he gave me on our third anniversary. If he looked closely, he would see a loving wife who had dressed up for her husband.

He wasn't looking closely. He was looking at the papers.

Page one was a cover letter. Page two was a trust amendment. By page six I understood it fully. It was a transfer of my father's trust into a holding company under Julian's name, with me listed as a "consenting beneficiary." Forty million dollars, gone, with my signature at the bottom saying I agreed.

My hands stayed steady. I turned the page.

"You're being thorough tonight," Julian said. He reached for his wine. "That's new."

"I had a strange dream this morning." I gave him a small, embarrassed smile. "I dreamed I signed something without reading it, and everything fell apart. It's been bothering me all day."

"Dreams are just dreams, baby."

"I know. But humor me." I closed the folder and set my hand on top of it. "I'd like Mr. Pruitt to look it over first. I'll sign tomorrow."

The candle between us flickered.

Julian's smile didn't change. But a muscle in his jaw jumped once, tight and quick, and I would not have noticed it if I hadn't spent forty days learning to read danger in small things.

"Pruitt is eighty years old," he said lightly. "He'll take a week to find his glasses. The deadline is Friday, Serena. The bank needs it filed."

"Then he can read it Thursday."

"It's really not necessary."

"Julian." I tilted my head and put my hand over his. "You said it yourself. It's just paperwork. If it's that simple, a lawyer will confirm it in five minutes."

He stared at me. For a moment I could almost hear him thinking. *She has never pushed back before. Why now?*

Then his phone started buzzing against the table.

He glanced at it and I saw the name flash across the screen for half a second. *Vendor Services.* The same boring name he used for Camille.

"I need to take this," he said, standing. "Don't go anywhere. Order dessert."

"Of course."

He walked toward the lobby with the phone to his ear, shoulders already hunched in that careful way he had when he lied. The moment he turned the corner, I pulled his jacket's inner pocket toward me.

Nothing.

His second phone, then. In my last life I had found it only after I died. A man like Julian never carried only one secret.

I looked under the napkin. Nothing. I looked at the chair he had been sitting in. A black phone sat half hidden under the cushion where he had tucked it before dinner, probably because he thought I might see it. I picked it up with two fingers.

The lock screen was a photo of a little boy in a dinosaur costume.

My stomach turned over, slow and cold.

The passcode was Julian's mother's birthday. He had used it for everything for as long as I had known him. I typed it in and the screen opened.

There was only one conversation saved at the top, under a contact name that said *C.* I scrolled up. Months of messages. Years, maybe. Pictures of dinner tables. A hospital bracelet with a tiny wrist. A birthday cake with four candles.

*Daddy's coming home soon, Oliver. Say goodnight.*

Under that was a video. I pressed play with my thumb.

A little boy's face filled the screen. Round cheeks, missing front tooth, Julian's eyes. He held up a crayon drawing of three stick figures under a yellow sun.

"Daddy! Look! This is you and me and Mommy! When are you coming home?"

I watched it twice.

The weird thing was that I didn't cry. Maybe I'd done all the crying already, on a bedroom floor that morning. What I felt was something much colder than grief. It was more like looking at a bill I had been paying for years and finally seeing the total.

I scrolled to the end of the thread and found the most recent messages from today.

**Julian:** *Dinner tonight. I'll get her to sign.*

**C:** *You said that last time.*

**Julian:** *Last time she got sick. Tonight she'll sign. She always does.*

**C:** *I hate waiting. Oliver keeps asking where you are.*

*She always does.*

I stood up. My legs didn't feel like mine. I took a photo of the screen with my own phone, then another, then another, every message, every date, every picture. My thumbs moved without shaking. I took a final picture of the boy's drawing, because for some reason I wanted to remember that Oliver had not chosen any of this.

Then I put the phone back under the cushion exactly the way it had been. I smoothed my dress. I sat down and took a sip of wine and watched the violinist bow into a long, slow note.

Julian came back three minutes later with his usual easy smile. "Sorry about that. Work. Did you order?"

"I'm not hungry." I took out my napkin and dabbed my mouth. "I think the stress is catching up to me. Can we go home?"

"Sure." His eyes went to the folder. He didn't touch it, but he looked at it long enough for me to understand how badly he wanted it. "You'll sign tomorrow, then?"

"After Mr. Pruitt." I smiled and stood up. "I'll call him first thing."

"Of course." He squeezed my shoulder. "Whatever makes you comfortable."

We walked out together into the cool night. He held the door for me. He put his hand at the small of my back, warm and familiar, and I let him, and I counted every second of it.

In the car, he turned on the radio and hummed along. I looked out the window at the city lights. Six more days of this. I could do six more days.

His jacket pocket buzzed once. He didn't take out the phone, but I saw the light flicker against the fabric.

I kept staring at the glass. In the reflection, I watched him glance down, read the message, and smile, a small private smile I had never seen directed at me in all our years of marriage.

Then the screen of his second phone lit up again, tilted just enough in the dark car for me to see the message in its entirety.

**C:** *Is she signing yet? Oliver keeps asking when you're coming home.*