She didn’t unfold it.
She just held it up.
“This is the certified copy from the county recorder,” she said. “The apartment at 114 Mercer. Deeded solely to Elise Moreau. Free and clear. No mortgage since 2018, when my consulting income paid the last installment you said we couldn’t afford.”
A chair scraped.
Victor’s brother slowly lowered the hand he had used to clap.
“That’s not possible,” Victor said. His champagne hand was trembling now. A thin line of bubbles spilled over his knuckles and he didn’t seem to feel it. “You… your little hobby doesn’t make that kind of money.”
Elise looked at him then, truly looked at him, and the softness in her eyes was worse than anger.
“My little consulting hobby,” she said into the microphone, “has been advising three of the companies in this room for the last eight years. You told everyone I was playing at work. You told me I was lucky you let me keep doing it. Last year my hobby made four hundred and twenty thousand dollars. I paid the property taxes you said were late. I paid your mother’s assisted living increase when you said we had to move her to a cheaper place.”
At the table nearest the cake, Victor’s mother, who no one had expected to see because Victor had said she was too ill to travel, made a small sound.
Elise’s eyes flicked to her.
“I told her you were covering it,” Elise said gently to the old woman. “I didn’t want her to worry.”
Victor’s mother pressed a napkin to her mouth. Her shoulders began to shake.
Lila took a step back from Victor’s chair as if the wood had burned her.
“You told me you were divorced,” she whispered to him, not into the microphone but loud enough in the silence that the front tables heard. “You told me she knew and she agreed and she was just staying until she found a place. You told me the apartment was yours.”
Victor turned on her, sharp.
“Lila, not now,” he hissed.
Elise watched the exchange without satisfaction.
Her free hand came up, palm out, a small, steadying gesture.
“Lila,” she said, and her voice changed, softened in a way that made several women in the room inhale sharply. “He told me you were his executive assistant. He told me you were twenty-two and needed mentoring. He asked me to review your resume.”
Lila stared.
“What?”
Elise nodded once, her throat moving as she swallowed.
“In March. He left it on the kitchen counter. Your name was on it. I recognized your photo when you walked in tonight.”
Lila’s face crumpled. The silver dress suddenly looked like a costume she had been talked into.
“I didn’t know,” she said. Her voice broke. “He said… he said you didn’t love him anymore. He said you were cold.”
“I was tired,” Elise said simply. “There’s a difference.”
Victor lunged then, not at Lila, not at Elise, but for the paper in Elise’s hand.
It was an ugly, graceless movement.
His shoe caught on the microphone cord and he stumbled, catching himself on the edge of the anniversary table. The cake wobbled. One of the sugar roses shivered and fell onto the white tablecloth.
The photographer Victor had hired kept shooting, flash after flash, capturing not a weeping wife but a man grabbing at air.
