“Do not answer.”
I pressed the voicemail icon instead.
Her voice played through the speaker.
“Alex, stop her from leaving.
Mark needs the deed paperwork signed before Monday, and this wedding drama was supposed to make her easier to handle.
Call me now.”
The message ended.
Silence filled the bedroom.
Alex’s shoulders dropped.
“It sounds worse than it is,” he said.
I almost admired the sentence.
It tried to make the evidence responsible for the betrayal.
My father knocked again, louder this time.
I opened the bedroom door.
My parents stood in the hallway.
My mother’s eyes moved from my packed suitcase to Alex’s body positioned between me and the apartment door.
My father looked directly at him.
“Move away from my daughter.”
Alex stepped back.
My mother took the suitcase without asking a question.
My father remained beside me while I put on my coat and slipped the blue folder into a canvas bag.
“Sarah,” Alex said, “please do not leave like this.”
I turned toward him.
“How would you prefer I leave?”
He rubbed both hands over his face.
“We can explain everything.
The investment was supposed to benefit us.”
“Then why did you hide it?”
“Because you say no before hearing people out.”
“I heard you out for five years.”
“That is not fair.”
“No,” I said.
“Sending my documents to a stranger and planning to exploit my humiliation was not fair.”
As I stepped into the hallway, one of the printed emails slid from the folder and landed faceup on the floor.
My father picked it up.
The attachment list included my property tax statement, an insurance record, and a scan of my signature taken from an old joint tax return.
My father read the page slowly.
Then he looked at Alex with an expression I had never seen on his face before.
“Has this signature been used on anything?” he asked.
Alex’s eyes dropped.
“I do not think so.”
My father folded the page once and handed it to me.
“That is not an answer.”
We left.
During the drive to the lakehouse, my phone vibrated continuously.
Alex called nine times.
Carol sent four messages.
The first said there had been a misunderstanding.
The second accused me of punishing Emily for something she had not done.
The third said mature women did not abandon their husbands during family events.
The fourth was different.
Please do not show anyone those emails.
We can discuss this privately.
My mother read the messages over my shoulder.
“She is not afraid that she hurt you,” she said.
