“We talked a lot. And I wasn’t looking for a girlfriend, but one thing led to another...”
“You could have said no,” Justine suggested.
“If you must know, I did. But there was something missing with us, with you and me. There was an empty place inside me and—”
“Stop that!” she yelled. “Stop feeding me those stale old chick flick lines. If there was something missing with us, you should have stopped going to that kayak shack and addressed the problem with me.”
“I did. We’ve been in marriage counseling,” he said.
“Much too late! You’d already been involved with her for a long time! Years.”
“Not years! We were mostly just friends. She was someone to talk to. It’s been fairly recent that we—”
“It’s been years! And obviously we can’t stay married. Or let me put this more succinctly—I can’t be married to someone who lies to me and has another woman on the side. For YEARS.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“I’m not suggesting, Scott. I’m not going to stay married to you. You’re unfaithful and you’re a liar, but most of all you’ve been screwing her while we went to marriage counseling! I can’t stay with you because you have no interest in saving our marriage! You need to leave, and we have to tell the kids.”
“Where am I supposed to go? I have no place to go!”
“Why don’t you see if they’ll set up a cot in the kayak shack.”
“Funny,” he said.
But Justine wasn’t joking.
“We really don’t have to change anything, you know,” Scott said.
“Oh, are you suggesting we invite your mistress into the family?” Justine asked frostily. “Because yes, we do have to change a few things.”
“Of course I’m not suggesting any such thing. And she’s not my mistress.”
“Oh. Sorry. Would you prefer girlfriend? Side chick? Whore?”
“You know, take your potshots at me if you want to, but she’s a very good person. A good Christian woman.”
“In her third marriage,” Justine said. “Three marriages, two bankruptcies, no arrests that I know of, thank God.”
“How do you know that?” he demanded.
“Scott. It’s public record. I’m an attorney. And a smart woman. I looked it up. She sounds like a predator.”
“Stop that!”
“Fine. We’re getting a divorce because you have a girlfriend. We’ll separate and settle our property. We can get it done cheaply or we can each get our own lawyer and spend a hundred grand and a year of our lives we’ll never get back.”
“Justine, where do you think I’m going to go?”
“What did you think was going to happen when I found out? You’ll think of something.”
“Why can’t we live here together as roommates?”
She was stunned. Something about the look on his face said he was serious. “No! I’m having a hard enough time getting used to the idea you’ve been unfaithful. I’m not continuing to live with you as your wife. We’ll tell the girls this weekend.”
Justine took a couple of additional days off ahead of the weekend. She worked on her laptop, and Scott probably assumed she was doing legal work from home. In fact, she was doing something she should have done a long time ago. She was diving into their financial records—tax returns, online bill paying, credit cards. She needed to find out if Scott had any additional credit cards, bank accounts, cell phones, email addresses and so on. She put in a call to Logan.
“I’ve been wondering about you,” he said. “How are you holding up?”
“I’m okay,” she said. “I’m going through our financial records, but it would be helpful to have a little more information if only to see how deep and far back the lying goes. Scott is a fun, attractive man but still, given this woman’s background, I wonder if he’s being had.”
“That could require surveillance,” Logan said. “Would I be out of line to give a little advice?”
“Knock yourself out,” she said. “I’m not feeling all that smart right now anyway.”