I suggest you avoid making additional claims until your attorney reviews the financial records.”
He hung up.
For the first time since leaving Seattle, I felt something other than grief.
Not triumph.
Distance.
I could finally see the structure from outside it.
Thomas had spent years telling relatives that he carried our household alone.
The story made him look generous and hardworking.
It made Brenda feel entitled to criticize me.
It made his mother view me as dependent.
But the bank records told a different story.
Before our marriage, I had received money from the sale of a small software company I helped build with two college friends.
I never lived extravagantly.
Most of the money remained invested.
The income from those investments, along with consulting work I completed quietly from home, covered far more than Thomas knew—or admitted publicly.
I had not hidden the money from him.
He had access to our tax documents and account summaries.
