Chapter 54 - The Husband I Buried

Then

I don’t remember deciding to do it.

I remember the fury, the frustration at trying to confront him, and underneath it, the grief. The kind that eviscerated me in the space of a breath. The moment I understood that my husband wasn’t just lying to me, he was living a life that didn’t include me in any meaningful way. He had left me on the sidelines, cheering for a race I wasn’t part of.

I’d believed we had something rare. Built on honesty. On choosing each other over everything else. And then I realized he’d made choices that placed me exactly where I’d never agreed to stand. Exposed, unprotected, expected to stay loyal without ever being asked.

He hadn’t just kept secrets. He’d decided for both of us. I would be the one left behind when it all collapsed. My career would suffer, because you can’t have a criminal for a spouse and still be a credible criminal lawyer. I would lose my practice. My credibility. My purpose. The wife who knew nothing. The woman who would be asked why she hadn’t seen it coming. Why she’d stood beside him while he burned everything down.

I wasn’t afraid of losing him as much as I was afraid of losing myself: of realizing too late that he’d already made that bargain on my behalf.

I remember standing in the kitchen across from him, the document folded in my bag like a live grenade, and asking him carefully and calmly if there was something he needed to tell me about, some trouble he was in at work.

He smiled like I was being dramatic.

Said I was overthinking it, that I’d misunderstood. He said it was handled.

That word. Handled. That’s exactly what he was trying to do with me. As if my life were a side issue. As if the law cared about intention once it started counting proximity. I was implicated.

‘Luis, this won’t just blow over. There’s talk of embezzlement.’

He stopped then to look at me. Finally taking it seriously.

‘I swear, you have nothing to worry about,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t part of it.’

‘I saw the file at work. I know Elizabeth was building a case,’ I said. ‘I need the truth, not fucking reassurance.’

My anger bubbled. I pressed him then. Harder. Told him this wasn’t nothing. That whatever he was involved in would catch up with him, and when it did, it wouldn’t stop with him.

He didn’t deny it, but he dismissed it. ‘This will blow over. Trust me.’

He had chosen the wrong words. I had trusted him. But not now.

‘Will the illegal takeover blow over too? Because from what I read, they’re going to fight,’ I said.

He sighed. He wasn’t looking for trust. He wanted silence.

When I first saw the document at work, before I asked Elizabeth about it, something inside me fractured completely. Because I knew then that it wasn’t just Luis lying to me. It was already being covered up and contained. Right under my nose.

And now, he still wouldn’t listen. Wouldn’t step back. Wouldn’t change course.

He looked at me like I was suddenly the obstacle. Like I was the only variable he hadn’t planned for.

That night, standing in the garage, I understood something with terrifying clarity. He wasn’t going to stop. And when it all came crashing down – and it would – it wouldn’t be him standing in front of a disciplinary board or a judge explaining why he’d made the choices he had. It would be me. The wife who should have known but pretended not to. The lawyer who should have seen it clearly. The woman whose silence would be interpreted as complicity.

I don’t remember deciding to do it. I remember realizing he’d already decided for me.

I couldn’t just leave now. It would look worse; it could bring even more of it out into the open. If I didn’t act, my life as I knew it would disappear.

*

Luis’s car sat there, still warm from the drive home. I could feel the heat radiating off it as I stood too close, my arms folded tight against my ribs like I was holding myself together.

I told myself I wasn’t doing anything drastic. Just . . . intervening. If he was out of the picture, whatever his colleagues did was their choice, and Luis wasn’t responsible.

The document I wasn’t supposed to see kept replaying in my head. Luis’s name buried in it. I had to get him out of the equation, just for a little while. Long enough to figure out how to fix it.

I knelt, more to steady myself than anything else. My heart was pounding so hard I was afraid the sound might echo. I kept glancing at the door, half expecting Luis to appear and ask what I was doing.

In that moment, I wouldn’t have known what to say.

My hands moved as though of their own accord. I remember hesitating. Pausing. Telling myself to stop. Then telling myself I couldn’t afford to.

I didn’t touch anything obvious. That was important – nothing crude, nothing violent. Just something small. Something that could pass as wear. A chance occurrence. One of those things mechanics shrugged at and blamed on bad luck.

I remember thinking, cars fail all the time.

I wiped my hands on my jeans afterwards, cleansing them of what I’d just done. I had trusted him completely. No questions asked. I thought that was what a relationship was supposed to be built on. Faith, loyalty, choosing each other even when things were difficult. But it doesn’t work when only one person is truly in it. Luis was only thinking about his life, his career. He wasn’t considering how it could impact me.

When I stood, my knees were weak. I leaned against the workbench and closed my eyes, breathing through the surge of nausea that followed. It was stronger than my guilt.

Grief. For what we’d lost. For something I’d thought we had but maybe never really did.

*

The morning after, I had awoken to a quiet room and the memory of what I’d done sitting heavy in my chest. I reached out automatically, fumbling through the covers beside me, my body searching for Luis before my mind could catch up. Wanting to feel him there with me. Solid. Warm. Real.

The bed was empty.

Panic flickered, quick and sharp. I told myself it was early enough that he was just out for a run, but his car wasn’t in the driveway.

It was too late to fix it.

Regret hit me hard then. Sudden. Devastating. An avalanche rolling down a mountain, crushing me under its weight.

I had been reactive. I would never have approached a case that way. I would have given myself time to calm down. To think, and devise a plan.

But I loved Luis, and that love stopped me from being rational in the moment.

I padded out to the garage, the first waves of panic moving with me.

Please let his car be there. Please don’t let it be too late to undo what I’ve done. I would find another way to fix the mess he’d created.

But as I opened the garage door, I knew it was too late. His car was already gone.

I stood there for a long moment, staring at the empty space, my mind racing through possibilities I didn’t want to name.

I called his phone. It rang out. I tried again while I was on my way to the office. Straight to voicemail.

By the time I reached my desk, my hands were shaking so badly that I had to grip the edge of it to steady myself. I reminded myself to breathe. To think like a lawyer. To think rationally.

If something had happened, if there had been an accident, someone would have called. The police. The hospital. Someone.

I checked my phone again. Nothing.

I didn’t know then whether the tightness in my chest was fear that I’d gone too far, or the dawning realization that I might have already lost him. And that whatever came next, there would be no way to explain it without destroying us both.

I called again, and this time he answered.

‘Hey, you miss me already?’ he asked.

For a few seconds, relief flooded through me like a drug, stopping me from speaking. Then I got a grip.

‘Yeah, actually,’ I said, leaning into the corniness of it. ‘I did.’

‘What’s up?’

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I love you. Just wanted to see if you wanna go out tonight. My shout.’

‘Sure. Text me where and what time and I’ll be there.’