"You never told me that."
"I was ashamed. Still am, a little. He was decent to me for twelve years. He came to our wedding. I never said a word to him about it. I should have."
They sat with that.
"Douglas wants me to sign tonight," she said. "Eight months. A letter saying I'm a genius. It all goes away."
"It doesn't go away," Pete said. "It just goes somewhere you don't have to look at it."
"We have Shannon's tuition. We have the mortgage. We have the roof, apparently, on Thursday." She heard her voice climbing and let it. "You don't get to be noble about this, Pete. You're not the one who'll be out of work at forty-nine with a story following her into every interview in this city. You get to tell me about Mr. Boateng and feel a little ashamed, and I'm the one who—"
"I know," he said. "You're right."
"I hate when you say I'm right."
"I know that too."
She put her face in her hands. He didn't touch her, and she was grateful. After a while he said, quietly, "If you take Douglas's money, I think you'll spend the rest of your life telling yourself it was politics. That it was about the deal. Maybe it partly was. But you'll never have to find out what else it was. That's the only thing I'm worried about. We'll manage the money either way."
She lay awake until three, the folder on the dresser, listening to Pete breathe. She tried to list every Black colleague she had worked with closely in twenty-two years at Brandt Whitlock, and found, to her horror, that the list was short enough to finish.