Chapter 3: What Was Inside the Envelope
Brittany excused herself from the table without explanation.
Her friends watched her go.
Nobody said anything.
The young waitress had already moved to another table, and the laughter that had filled that corner of the restaurant ten minutes ago had gone somewhere it couldn't come back from.
Outside, Brittany stood on the sidewalk and called her husband.
He picked up on the first ring.
"Marcus, what's going on?"
"Where are you?" His voice was flat.
Not angry.
Flat was worse.
"I'm at lunch.
I told you this morning — Renata's birthday.
The place on Fifth."
"Come home."
"Marcus, I'm in the middle of—"
"Brittany." A pause.
"Come home now."
She took a cab.
The whole ride she told herself it was nothing.
A business problem.
Something with the contractors.
Marcus handled commercial real estate and there were always fires to put out.
It didn't have to be about her.
But she already knew it was about her.
She walked into the house and found him at the kitchen table.
Not in his office.
Not on his phone.
Just sitting there with an open envelope in front of him and both hands flat on the table like he needed to feel something solid.
"Sit down," he said.
"Tell me what happened."
"I said sit down, Brittany."
She sat.
He slid the envelope across to her.
She looked at it without touching it.
The return address was a law firm she didn't recognize.
The letter inside was two pages, single-spaced.
"What is this?" she asked.
"It's a business proposal," Marcus said.
"Or that's what I thought when it arrived last week.
It came addressed to me personally, so I assumed it was from one of my contacts." He leaned back in his chair.
"It's not a proposal.
It's a file."
Brittany's fingers moved toward the envelope, then stopped.
"A file on what?"
"On you." Marcus looked at her steadily.
"On what you did to Daniel Carter fifteen years ago."
The kitchen was very quiet.
"I don't know what you're talking about," she said.
"You reported him," Marcus said.
"To the school board.
To the scholarship committee.
You filed a complaint saying he had cheated on his entrance exams.
You had friends sign it.
You had a teacher co-sign it."
"Marcus—"
"He lost the scholarship, Brittany.
The full ride to Vanderbilt.
He lost it three weeks before the term started." Marcus picked up his coffee cup, looked at it, set it back down.
"He had to defer.
Took him four years to get back on track financially.
Four years."
Brittany said nothing.
"The file has copies of the original complaint," Marcus said.
"It has the names of every person who signed it.
It has a statement from the teacher who co-signed it — written last year — saying he was pressured into it." He paused.
"And it has your signature, Brittany.
Your actual signature, on the complaint form."
"That was fifteen years ago." Her voice had steadied.
She was reaching for something.
"People grow up.
Whatever happened between Daniel and me back then, it has nothing to do with our life now."
Marcus looked at her for a long moment.
"He sent this to me," he said quietly.
"Not to you.
To me.
Do you understand what that means?
He wanted me to know who I married."
Brittany pushed back from the table.
"He's running a smear campaign because I embarrassed him at a restaurant today.
That's all this is.
He's a vindictive—"
"He sent this letter eight days ago," Marcus said.
"Before today.
Before the restaurant."
She stopped moving.
Marcus stood up, walked to the window, and stood with his back to her.
"I need you to tell me the truth," he said.
"Not a version of it.
The truth."
May you like
She didn't answer.
That was answer enough.
