“You don’t need to know about every account I have, Clara,” he said.

I asked him who Diane was.
He didn’t blink.
He calmly said she was just a friend and that I was making a big deal out of a thank-you gift.
He said they were just looking at retirement property papers in the guest room because it was convenient while I was at work.
He shrugged and told me I was overreacting, like I always did.

I walked out of the room, my jaw locked.
For the next 2 weeks, we lived like strangers.
I didn’t cook for him.

I didn’t wash his clothes. I didn’t look at him when he entered a room.

Richard didn’t seem to care.
He was too busy planning his retirement.
He was constantly on the phone, laughing, talking about the cabin and the golf courses.
He thought he had convinced me, or that I was just going to accept his excuses like I always did.

To the world, we were still the happy couple preparing for Richard’s early retirement.
Our neighbors told me how lucky I was.
Mrs. Gable said over the fence that we were going to have a beautiful retirement.
I smiled with my soul bleeding behind my teeth.
Am I crazy for thinking he would at least try to apologize?

What he didn’t know was that I had already made a phone call.
On the Monday morning after I found the Visa card, I called my brother Arthur.
I told him to run a forensic audit on Richard’s corporate accounts.
I told him to check the client entertainment expenses for the last 3 years and to look at the credit cards.

Arthur was silent.
He asked me what was going on, but I just told him to look at the numbers.

Arthur called me back 4 hours later.
His voice was shaking with anger.
He told me that Richard had been using the company card for weekend trips to Chicago, and that he had been funneling project bids to a rival construction firm.
He was trying to take their biggest clients with him when he retired.

Richard’s retirement fantasy wasn’t just about moving to Florida with Diane.
He had planned to launch a competitor firm, using Vance Engineering’s client list and money he had embezzled from the business.

Arthur and I sat down with the company lawyers.
We spent 5 days putting the evidence together.
We had the receipts.

We had the emails. We had the bank transfers.
We had everything.

The day of the retirement party arrived on a Friday.
The Rockford Country Club was decorated with white tablecloths and green balloons.
Over 100 people were there.
Richard’s coworkers, our family, and several of Vance Engineering’s biggest clients.