Page 53 of The Marriage Blunder

We kept at it, the two of us, for another hour. The sound was the pen, the paper, the distant hum of the fridge cycling on and off.

I catalogued every motion Kenneth made: the way he rested his foot on the edge of the coffee table, the way he reached for the invoices with two fingers and a flick of the wrist, the way his laugh surfaced only at the smallest margins, never all at once.

He wore his watch on the inside of his left wrist, like he didn’t want anyone to see how often he checked it. The veins at the back of his hand stood out, blue and deliberate.

We took a break at some point. I don’t remember what time it was, but the city was quieter, and the lamp was the only light in the apartment.

Kenneth said, “You need food.”

I almost argued, but he was already standing, already walking toward the kitchen.

I stretched my legs, flexed my toes. My left foot had fallen asleep, but I didn’t bother to fix it. I leaned back, closed my eyes, and let the evidence settle around me.

The kitchen smelled like garlic and bread. I sat at the island, notebook open, watching Kenneth move. He took a loaf from the breadbox, sliced it, spreading something on it with the back of a spoon. He moved with the efficiency of a man who only did things himself when he absolutely wanted to.

He set the plate in front of me, along with a fresh mug of coffee. He poured a glass of water for himself, and drank half in one go. I noted, absently, that he was not a wine-at-dinner person, not unless it was company or a formal occasion.

We ate in silence. I scribbled something in the notebook, and when I looked up, he was watching me, elbow on the counter, chin in hand.

“You’re not going to stop until you get it all, are you?”

“No,” I replied.

“Good,” he said.

I smiled. It was not a normal smile, but it was real.

He reached over, this time not for a reason, just to be sure, and put his hand over mine. It was cool and dry and so matter-of-fact that I almost forgot to feel self-conscious.

I didn’t move.

“You’re really something,” he said.

I looked at the hand, at the way our fingers overlapped, at the veins in his wrist. “So are you.”

He squeezed, then let go, then stood and started to clear the plates.

After dinner, we went back to the couch. The paper was less daunting now. I was close to the answer. Kenneth sat at my side, this time his knee pressed lightly against my thigh, the contact unbroken. He worked his phone, thumb flicking over the screen with the same precision he used on everything else.

I ran the numbers again, this time backwards, looking for a contradiction. There was one: a line item on the events schedule that did not match the guest list. The host was “private,” but the staff listed under the vendor account matched the roster from the Illumination Club, two months ago.

I said, “She staged it.”

Kenneth looked over. “Staged what?”

I handed him the page, tapped the margin with the pen. “This dinner. It was a cover for the Voss meeting. Mercer built the guest list, but it’s a mirror image of your stockholder party.”

He processed, then nodded. “You think Carolyn went to the club that night?”

“I know she did,” I said. “And I think she met with Voss and Mercer and someone else.”

“Who?”

I shrugged. “That’s the part we don’t have yet.”

He set the page down. His hand lingered on my knee, just resting there, nothing performed about it. He looked at me for a long time.

Then, without warning, he leaned in and kissed me.