“Why?” I asked her.
She looked at me.
The question was not about the papers.
It was about every morning she had walked past my kitchen without asking whether I slept. Every time she had used my credit card. Every time she had watched Daniel speak to me that way and remained silent.
Her eyes filled.
“Because I thought if I stayed with him, I could keep him from getting worse.”
Daniel laughed once.
It was a hard, humorless sound.
“You always say that.”
“You were worse when you drank.”
“I stopped drinking.”
“You switched to pills.”
He stared at her.
Arthur glanced at me. I shook my head slightly. I had known about the drinking. I had not known about the pills.
Marissa went on.
“You stopped when the doctor threatened to report you. Then you started taking money from the business account.”
“That was temporary.”
“You forged my signature.”
“I was fixing the business.”
“You took the money from your mother.”
Daniel looked at me.
“She gave it to me.”
“I gave it to you for payroll,” I said.
“And I used it to cover payroll.”
“For six months?”
The coffee in his cup had gone untouched. A thin skin had formed over the surface.
Marissa wiped her cheek with the side of her thumb.
“I tried to leave last winter.”
Daniel looked at her with an expression so cold it emptied the room.
“You tried.”
