I thought of how easily Michael had pronounced me guilty without examining anything at all.
That evening Patricia left a voicemail: If you loved my son, you’d make this easy. I played it for Camille, then deleted nothing. Love had become a word Michael’s family used whenever they wanted me to surrender something.
I began writing a different definition in my journal: Love asks questions before passing judgment. Love doesn’t make fear the price of staying.
CHAPTER 11: THE CONFERENCE RECEIPT
The credit-line transfer history included a payment to a resort where Michael and Jessica had attended a business conference. The receipt was dated the weekend he told me he was visiting his brother. Another transfer covered an apartment deposit.
These discoveries did not prove the parentage of my children, but they showed that Michael had been arranging another life while insisting I was the dishonest one. Camille incorporated the transactions into our financial disclosures.
