Chapter 5 - The File
Diane folded her arms across her chest, a smug, cruel sneer lifting the corner of her mouth. She thought she knew me. She thought this was merely a temporary emotional breakdown brought on by postpartum hormones, sleep deprivation, and the stress of caring for a newborn alone. She believed that with enough volume, enough guilt, and enough intimidation, I would eventually cave—just as I had always done in the past.
"You're hysterical," she said dismissively, waving her hand in the air as if sweeping away my words. "You're clearly suffering from postpartum depression. I’m going to sit right here on this couch until you pull yourself together, open your laptop, and fix my bank accounts. You aren't going to destroy this family over a temper tantrum, Elena."
She turned toward the sofa, preparing to sit down.
"If you sit on that couch, Diane," I said softly, "the police will arrest you for grand larceny before you can even cross your legs."
She stopped dead in her tracks. She turned around slowly, her brows furrowed in a mixture of confusion and sudden suspicion. "What did you just say?"
I didn't answer her verbally. Holding Iris securely against my chest with my left arm, I walked slowly over to my desk near the window. I opened the bottom drawer, pulled out a thick, heavy manila folder bound with a black elastic band, and dropped it onto the dining table right beside her purse.
The heavy folder landed with a dull, echoing thud.
Diane looked down at the folder, then up at me, her eyes narrowing. "What is this? More of your dramatic nonsense?"
"Open it," I said flatly. "Go ahead. Take a look at what I’ve been working on for the past seven days while I was lying in that hospital bed recovering from childbirth."
With a scoff of annoyance, Diane unclasped the elastic band and opened the cover.
Inside were over fifty pages of meticulously organized financial documents. There were printed bank statements going back eight years, marked with bright yellow highlighter lines. There were canceled checks, wire transfer receipts, notarized property records, tax filing copies, and printed email exchanges.
On the very top page was a formal legal letter stamped with the official insignia of the United States Department of Defense Legal Assistance Office, flanked by a formal audit notice from the Internal Revenue Service.
Diane’s eyes scanned the top page.
May you like
As her eyes moved down the text, the smug, arrogant sneer on her face slowly, systematically collapsed. The color drained from her cheeks so fast it looked as if she had been struck by a physical blow. Her lower lip began to tremble faintly.
"This..." she whispered, her voice suddenly losing all its volume. "What is this?"
