Chapter 10: Ninety Days

Naomi's POV

I put Miles in the big armchair in Lucia's front room and laid my coat over him.

Then I came back to the hall and held out my hand for the phone.

Marcello gave it to me without a word.

I read the line from the head of IT twice, with the date at the top.

The email had been written five days before the party.

My login had been born six days after it.

I had been a contract attorney with a shared password when that sentence was supposedly typed from my desk.

I had not remembered the date, because I had never had a reason to look.

I handed the phone back.

"Eight years," I said.

"Naomi."

"Eight Christmas Eves."

"I know."

"I left your dinner in the oven every one of them."

"I told Miles you were working late for him."

"I told myself it was only a bad year."

His face went gray.

"You did not ask me once," I said. "You had a question, and you were a lawyer, and you did not ask your wife."

"I was ashamed."

"Of what?"

"That I wanted to believe you."

I stared at him.

"If I asked, you might have answered," Marcello said. "And I might have believed you. And then I would have to know what I had done."

The hall was very quiet.

I wanted to hit him. I wanted to sit down on the stairs and weep. I did neither.

"Go and sit in the kitchen," I said. "I need to say something, and I want you to hear every word."

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