She didn’t know what to do.” He looked at the ground.
“Neither did I, honestly.
I kept thinking there had to be a better moment.
A private moment.
I’m sorry it came to this.”
I picked up the photographs again.
In the last one, Nathan and Cassandra were standing in front of a building I now recognized as the Riverside apartment.
He had his arm around her.
They were both smiling.
The photo was dated four months ago.
I had been working a double shift that weekend.
I remembered it specifically because the restaurant’s dishwasher had broken down and I’d stayed three hours past my scheduled end time.
I’d come home at midnight.
Nathan had been asleep.
Or I had thought he was asleep.
“Does he know you have these?” I asked.
Daniel shook his head.
“No.”
I stood up.
I gathered the photographs, the screenshots, the property document, and placed them carefully back in the envelope.
“Where is he right now?” I asked.
Daniel glanced toward the courtyard.
“Still near the front steps.
His parents just arrived.”
His parents.
I had met his parents at our wedding.
His mother had held my hands and told me I was the best thing that had ever happened to her son.
“Does his family know?” I asked.
Daniel hesitated just long enough.
I walked back into the courtyard.
I didn’t run.
I didn’t raise my voice.
I carried the envelope at my side and I crossed the open space between the hedges and the front steps with the same steadiness I had used to carry trays for eight-hour shifts and file insurance forms at midnight and smile at Nathan every morning while he studied and I got ready for work.
Nathan saw me coming.
His smile flickered.
His mother, Eleanor, was standing beside him in a pale blue dress.
She saw me too.
She didn’t smile.
She looked at the envelope.
“I think we should talk,” I said.
Nathan’s voice came out too smooth, too practiced.
“This isn’t the place.”
“You chose the place,” I said.
