“But it was.”
I sighed then said, “Yes, it was.”
“And you walked away with nothing except money enough for your legal fees, did I read this right?”
It was at this point I was beginning to get scared. That was to say I was beginning to get scared to add to the already scared I was which was layered on top of the massive freak out created by my home being invaded by what appeared to be about three teams of multi-agency SWAT (because some had the word POLICE on their vests, some had FBI and some had DEA), pulled out of my bed and hauled to the Police Station to be questioned.
Therefore my bravado melted and it came out as a whisper when I asked, “Please, can you tell me what’s going on?”
He didn’t tell me what was going on. Instead, he queried, “Did you ever regret that, Ms.
O’Hara?”
“What?” I asked.
“Accepting from your husband nothing but your legal fees, did you ever regret that?”
I shook my head. “No, I… no. I didn’t. I wanted a fresh start. I wanted –”
“Why?”
I blinked at him. “What?”
“Why did you want a fresh start? Ten years with him, multiple infidelities, he made six figures, you lived a very nice life. You could have cleaned up. But you took the dog and took off. Didn’t you think he owed you? Didn’t you think you should have part of the life you built together?”
I shook my head again. “No, I just wanted to… go,” I answered. “Is something… has something happened to Damian?”
He didn’t answer my question. Instead he remarked, “Ten years is a long time. That’s a lot to invest in a life, a marriage, a home just to walk away with nothing but the dog. Seems strange you wouldn’t lay claim to something. The wedding china. The dining room set. You didn’t even take a car.”
“Damian paid for the cars,” I said quietly.
“And you wanted nothing to do with him,” he noted. “Nothing to remind you of him. Am I right?”
I nodded, staring at him, trying to read his face but he wasn’t giving me anything.
“Lotta women, they wouldn’t feel like you. Lotta women, kind of money he made, kind of lifestyle they were used to, they’d feel something different,” he observed.
“I’m not a lot of women,” I told him.
“No, seems to me you definitely aren’t. Leaving all that behind, taking nothing but the dog. Seems to me it wasn’t so much leaving him as running away. Were you running away from your husband, Ms. O’Hara?”
I felt my chest compress like a hundred pound weight had settled on it.
“No,” I breathed out on a wheeze, this the first lie I’d uttered since he came in and his eyes sharpened on my face.
He knew I was lying.
“We had someone taking photos of you at lunch. This did not go well. We know this. You didn’t finish your lunch, Ms. O’Hara. You left early looking agitated. Hurried. Like you were running away. He tell you something at lunch that would make you wanna run away?”
“I didn’t run away,” I denied, my second lie, I did. “I just didn’t… when he told me that he’d lied about his father and he wanted to reconcile and I knew I didn’t, I didn’t think there was any reason to stay.”
He sat back in his chair and threw out an arm. “Ten years together, he screwed around on you, that’s tough but you married him, spent ten years with him. Time had passed. Time heals wounds. It wasn’t cool he lied about his dad but he went out of his way to get you. You couldn’t shoot the breeze over salads? Talk about old times?”
“Please tell me what’s going on,” I begged softly.
“I’d like to understand why you left your husband and why you left that lunch in such a hurry.”
“I told you and so did the court papers. He cheated on me and I didn’t want to have lunch when I learned the theme,” I reminded him.