CHAPTER FIVE — THE FIRST HONEST CONVERSATION
Jonah met attorney Frances Bell on Friday morning.
She worked from a small office above a pharmacy, and her waiting room smelled faintly of lemon cleaner.
He brought his spreadsheet and a list of questions.
Frances listened without interrupting while he described the affair, the pregnancy, the mortgage, and the proposed statement.
“Do not sign statements you cannot personally verify,” she said.
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Good.”
He asked about separating finances without disrupting normal household payments.
She explained the difference between maintaining records, preserving necessary expenses, and taking actions that could later be interpreted as hiding property.
He wrote down her recommendations.
Then he asked how paternity should be handled.
Frances did not give him the certainty he wanted.
“Keep the question separate from the anger,”
she said.
“You and Belinda will need medical and legal guidance when the appropriate time comes.”
Jonah nodded.
He felt embarrassed by his desire for an immediate answer.
He had spent a night wanting the baby to belong unmistakably to someone else because that would make his decision easier.
Now he was ashamed of treating a child’s existence as a shortcut through heartbreak.
When the appointment ended, Frances handed back his spreadsheet.
She had circled its title with a blue pen.
“I recommend a more neutral name for any document you intend to share,” she said.
Jonah looked at OPERATION BYE-BYE BELINDA and laughed for the first time in two days.
“Fair point.”
He renamed the file Household Transition Inventory before leaving.
On the stairwell, he received a message from Belinda.
Dorian says you’re threatening him.
Jonah stopped walking.
I haven’t threatened him, he replied.
I asked him not to advertise a service that isn’t ready.
Belinda typed for nearly a minute.
Then her answer appeared.
He says you’ll regret embarrassing him.
Jonah stared at the screen.
That sounded more like a threat than anything he had said.
He forwarded the message to Frances for his records.
At home, he found a bouquet of white lilies on the porch.
A card beneath the ribbon read, We can still handle this professionally.
There was no signature.
Jonah carried the bouquet inside, placed it in a vase, and left the card on the counter.
He considered throwing the flowers away.
Instead he put them beside the blue folder where their message could not be mistaken for affection.
Later that afternoon, Belinda called.
“Are the flowers there?”
“Yes.”
“Dorian sent them as an apology.”
“An apology for what?”
“He knows yesterday was uncomfortable.”
“His message through you was that I’d regret embarrassing him.”
“He didn’t mean it like that.”
“How did he mean it?”
Belinda hesitated.
“He’s under a lot of pressure.”
“So are the employees waiting for those rooms.”
“Will you stop bringing them into every conversation?”
“I didn’t bring them into the flower delivery.”
She went silent again.
Then she whispered, “I’m scared.”
Jonah’s chest tightened.
“Of what?”
“Of losing everything at once.”
He sat down.
“Are you afraid Dorian will hurt you?”
“No.”
“Is he pressuring you to sign something?”
“I can’t discuss it.”
“Belinda, you can choose someone independent to advise you.”
“If I do that, he’ll think I’m turning against him.”
“That isn’t a reason to go without advice.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Then speak to someone who does.”
He gave her Frances’s office number and told her the attorney could recommend separate counsel.
Belinda said she would think about it.
After she hung up, Jonah sat alone with the lilies and wished an apology were as simple as flowers.
