Chapter 4: Everything Michael Didn't Know
The guests left in clusters, quietly, the way people do when they are being careful with someone else's pain.
A few of the women stopped to squeeze my hand.
One of Michael's colleagues from work clapped him once on the shoulder and walked away without trying to say anything.
That was the right thing to do.
The estate manager appeared at the ballroom entrance and asked, with enormous delicacy, whether we would like the catering staff to stand down.
"Please," I said.
Daniel offered to leave as well, but Michael looked up from the altar step and said, "No.
Stay."
So we stayed — the three of us — in a ballroom arranged for a wedding that had just come apart at the seams.
The flowers were still perfect.
The ivory ribbons on the chairs were still tied.
The champagne was still cold.
Michael stood eventually.
He picked up the velvet box and turned it over in his hands without opening it.
"Tell me everything," he said to Daniel.
"From the beginning."
Daniel pulled a chair from the nearest table, turned it backward, and sat down with his forearms resting across the top.
He was a careful man.
I had heard it in his voice on the phone at four in the morning, and I saw it now in the way he thought before he spoke.
"I met Olivia six years ago in Charleston," he began.
"She was going by a different name then.
Vivienne Cole."
Michael's head lifted slightly.
"We were together for two years.
Then married.
The marriage lasted eight months before she left." Daniel paused.
"She didn't tell me she was leaving.
I came home one evening and her things were gone.
No note.
No call.
Nothing."
"Did you look for her?"
"I tried.
She had closed the bank accounts we shared, returned the lease on her car, and disappeared.
A mutual friend told me six months later that she had moved north and was using her middle name." He looked at his hands.
"Olivia is her middle name.
Bennett was her grandmother's surname."
"So Vivienne Cole became Olivia Bennett," Michael said.
"Yes."
"And the marriage was never dissolved."
"I tried to file for divorce on grounds of abandonment.
My attorney ran into complications because she couldn't be formally located.
It was technically still open when your mother called me."
Michael turned to me.
"How did you find him?"
"The name," I said.
"Olivia said it herself, the night before the wedding.
She said you didn't know what happened in Charleston.
I spent the night searching.
Your father always said that people who run from somewhere leave a trail if you know what you're looking for." I kept my voice steady.
"Daniel's name appeared in a property dispute filing connected to a Charleston address registered to a Vivienne Cole.
I found his contact number through a business listing."
Michael was quiet for a moment.
"And the photograph."
Daniel nodded once.
"A friend of mine recognized her at a restaurant in the city four months ago.
With a man I didn't know.
He sent me the photograph because he thought I should know she was nearby.
I had no idea she was engaged to anyone.
I put it in a drawer and tried not to think about it." He looked at Michael.
"When your mother called this morning, I brought everything I had."
"Who is the man in the photograph?"
Daniel reached into the envelope again and removed a single sheet of paper.
He placed it on the table between them.
"His name is Warren Schultz.
He's a property developer based in Atlanta.
The house Olivia purchased in Charleston — the one bought with your mother's money — was purchased jointly.
His name is on the title."
The silence that followed was the longest of the morning.
Michael picked up the sheet and read it.
He set it back down.
He looked at the velvet box still in his other hand.
"She was buying a house with another man," he said.
"Using my mother's money.
While planning our wedding."
"Yes."
"While telling my mother she was emotionally unstable and needed to be seated at the back of the room."
"Michael —" I started.
"No." He shook his head.
"Don't protect her.
Not now."
I closed my mouth.
"I want to know one more thing," Michael said to Daniel.
"The transfers from the wedding account.
Did Olivia know that what she was doing was illegal?"
Daniel glanced at me.
I had already spoken to my attorney about this.
"The account was jointly administered," I said carefully.
"My attorney believes the transfers could constitute f*aud given the invoices were fabricated.
That will depend on what the bank's investigation finds."
"You've already contacted the bank?"
"This morning.
Before I came here."
Michael looked at me for a long time.
"You came here anyway," he said.
"Knowing all of this.
Knowing what was going to happen."
"I came because you deserved to know the truth before you signed anything.
That's what Daniel told me on the phone.
I thought he was right."
My son set the velvet box on the table.
He opened it.
The cufflinks caught the light from the chandelier — small and silver and older than either of us.
He closed the box again and slid it across the table toward me.
"Keep them for now," he said.
"I don't want to lose them today."
I took the box and held it in both hands.
"What are you going to do?" I asked.
He was quiet for a moment.
"I don't know yet." He looked toward the ballroom doors.
"But I know what I'm not going to do."
He picked up the marriage certificate and the property title and the photograph and placed them all back in Daniel's envelope.
"I need her to know," Michael said, "that I'm not going to pretend this didn't happen."
Daniel nodded.
"There's one more thing you should know," Daniel said quietly.
"Before you decide how to proceed."
Michael looked at him.
"Warren Schultz isn't just a property developer." Daniel folded his hands.
"He's also a cr*minal defense attorney.
And three years ago, before Olivia left Charleston, there was an investigation into funds that went missing from a charitable trust she was administering."
The chandelier light hummed very softly above us.
"The investigation was dropped," Daniel said.
"No charges were ever filed.
But the trust was dissolved, and two of the board members resigned."
Michael stood very still.
"She's done this before," he said.
May you like
Daniel didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
