Chapter 3 - One Suitcase
I walked into our bedroom and packed a single suitcase: a week of clothes, my passport, vital medical records, a small jewelry pouch, and a thick manila folder from the bottom drawer of my desk. That folder contained years of meticulous financial statements and receipts. Not because I had been preparing for a malicious revenge plot, but because keeping careful records was simply part of my professional nature.
When I returned to the living room, Jessica was already transferring the dinner I had cooked into plastic food containers. She looked at my suitcase with a smug smirk. “Where are you going?”
“My parents’ house for a few days.”
“Reality is going to hit hard when you don’t have Michael paying for everything,” she mocked.
I almost corrected her on the spot. I almost told her who actually funded our lifestyle. Instead, I gave her a quiet, knowing smile. “I think reality is going to surprise all of us.”
Then I walked out the front door, hailed a cab, and slid into the backseat.
As the taxi pulled away into the Manhattan traffic, my phone buzzed. It was a text message from Michael: Have your lawyer contact mine.
May you like
I read it once, letting out a slow breath. Then, my mind flashed to Friday. Jessica’s son Tony attended an exclusive private middle school, and his spring tuition installment of fifteen thousand dollars was due in three days. For the past three years, I had paid it entirely from my private consulting account because Jessica had once cried in my office, begging me not to tell Michael how badly her family was struggling financially.
I decided it was time for a reality check.
