After the boys went to sleep, I sat at the kitchen table with the court papers spread before me.
The house was quiet except for the soft hum of the refrigerator.
My phone rang.
Gavin.
I answered after the third ring.
“Cassandra.”
His voice sounded tired.
“Yes?”
“I never thought you would use those documents.”
“I never thought you would tell our sons I abandoned them.”
He was silent.
Then he said, “I panicked.”
“About losing what?”
“Everything.”
I looked around the kitchen.
Nolan’s homework sat beside a bowl of apples. Parker’s shoes were near the back door. Their ordinary belongings reminded me that the most important parts of my life had never been listed on a financial statement.
“You arrived with three attorneys and asked the court to take the boys from their home.”
“I didn’t think it would become this serious.”
“It became serious because you made it serious.”
He exhaled.
“What do you want?”
“Honesty. With the court, with the boys, and with yourself.”
He hesitated.
“And what do you want from the company?”
There it was.
Not an apology.
Not a question about Nolan or Parker.
The company.
“I have not decided.”
“The board will panic if these records become public.”
“Then perhaps the board should learn how the company was really created.”
His voice softened.
“You sound different.”
“I am different.”
“No,” he said. “You sound like the woman I met before all of this.”
For a moment, I remembered the younger Gavin standing beside our first shuttle van, laughing in the rain because the passenger door would not close properly.
I remembered believing we were building one life together.
“That woman trusted you,” I said.
