Chapter 9 - The Woman Who Left Before I Arrived
Catherine Holloway was forty.
Dark blond hair.
A thin scar near her eyebrow.
She walked into Dad’s conference room carrying an old accordion folder and looked at me for several seconds.
“I’m Catherine.”
“Ben’s wife?”
“Former.”
“Why did he tell me you never existed?”
Her smile was sad.
“Because the Bennetts function best when every new woman thinks she’s the first one who misunderstood them.”
Catherine married Ben at twenty-six.
The family needed financing.
Her duplex had equity.
Ben asked.
She refused.
Then Linda moved in “temporarily.”
Gary began giving speeches about responsibility.
Ben started telling friends Catherine had emotional problems.
Arguments were recorded.
Photographs taken.
Catherine found an unsigned lender file.
Her duplex listed as collateral.
A consent bearing her name.
Not her signature.
“The lender caught it?”
“Yes.”
“The loan died?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“Ben said I sabotaged his family.”
Linda told everyone:
“She almost destroyed us.”
Catherine eventually left.
The divorce became messy.
Then came the shame.
“Why didn’t you report the signature?”
She looked down.
“I didn’t have what you have.”
Then, quietly:
“And I still loved him.”
I understood.
That frightened me more than anything.
Catherine opened the folder.
“Did Ben tell you how you met?”
“At Dad’s charity gala.”
She nodded.
“That is where he met me too.”
My skin went cold.
Different years.
Same event network.
Same family.
Same type of woman.
Both with separately owned real estate.
But Catherine was careful.
“I can’t prove he chose me because of the duplex.”
“Do you believe he chose me because of my building?”
“I believe his mother knew exactly what you owned before your first date.”
She placed an email on the table.
Date:
Nine months before Ben introduced himself to me.
Ben to Linda:
ARTHUR CARTER’S DAUGHTER OWNS THE DUBLIN BUILDING NOW.
Linda:
THE ONE NEAR THE MEDICAL CORRIDOR?
Ben:
YES.
Linda:
Interesting.
I stared until the words blurred.
Ben knew.
Before the flowers.
Before the dinners.
Before he told me he loved how “normal” I was despite my family.
May you like
He knew exactly which property sat in my name.
And tomorrow, Catherine said, she would show us why that fact had mattered to the Bennetts for years.
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