Chapter 5: Not in the Car

"I drove here," I said. "I'll drive myself home."

Dean stood very still on Dorothy's lawn.

His mother was watching. His sister-in-law was watching. The neighbor had given up on his hedge entirely.

"Fine," Dean said, in the voice he used for waiters. "We'll talk at the house."

I was home first.

I stood in the bare kitchen, where two sawhorses held up a sheet of plywood and a lamp.

Then I called my lawyer on a Sunday.

She picked up on the second ring.

"Tell me what happened," she said.

I told her about the email in a name I never signed and the call recorded in a cabinet shop.

I told her about the saws.

She was quiet for a moment.

"That recording is very good," she said. "Don't play it for anyone. Where will your husband be on Saturday night?"

"At a restaurant. With both families. At seven."

"Then that is where he gets served," she said. "I'll have the papers drafted by Friday."

I heard Dean's car in the driveway.

"Act like you're thinking about it," she said.

"I'm good at that," I said. "I've had three years of practice."

The front door opened and shut harder than it needed to.

Dean came into the kitchen doorway and stopped where the island should have been.

"You humiliated my mother," he said.

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