I held the banking alert toward Callum.

“Where is our money?”

His eyes flicked toward Lisa.

“I moved it temporarily.”

“Forty-two thousand dollars is not moved by accident.”

“It’s still family money.”

“Whose family?”

Callum’s jaw tightened.

“Ellie should not be hearing this.”

“Ellie already heard you call another woman’s baby yours.”

Mom lifted Ellie from my arms.

“I’ll sit with her in the kitchen.

The door stays open.”

Ellie clung to my sleeve.

“Are you coming too?”

“In one minute, sweetheart.”

Callum waited until she was several steps away.

“If you make a scene, you will frighten her.”

“You told a five-year-old to protect your affair.

Don’t lecture me about frightening her.”

Lisa shoved the property brochure into her purse.

“The money was for a deposit.

Callum was going to pay it back.”

“On a house for you?”

“For the baby,” she said.

Callum stepped closer.

“Listen to me.

If the child is mine, I have responsibilities.”

“You had responsibilities before this child existed.”

“And you were never home.”

I looked at him.

“I was working extra hours because you said we needed to pay down the mortgage.”

He said nothing.

Mom appeared in the kitchen doorway.

“Callum, is that where the mortgage money went too?”

“That’s none of your concern.”

“It became my concern when you used one daughter to betray the other.”

Lisa’s face hardened.

“You have always chosen her.”

Mom crossed the room.

“Today, I’m choosing the truth.”

Callum took out his phone.

“I’m calling my solicitor.”

“You do that,” I said.

“Tell them you emptied a joint account minutes after your affair was exposed.”

“It was my money too.”

“Then why transfer all of it?”

“To stop you from doing something reckless.”

I stared at him.

“You planned for this moment.”

He slipped the phone into his pocket.

“If you try to keep Ellie from me, I’ll tell the court you’re unstable.

Everyone here just watched you lose control.”

A voice came from the open front door.

“I watched you threaten your wife.”

Callum’s mother, Ruth, stood there holding a white envelope.

She had arrived late and heard enough.

“Mom, stay out of this,” Callum said.

Ruth walked past him and placed the envelope in my hand.

“This came to my address yesterday.

I thought it was a mistake.”

The return address belonged to our mortgage lender.

I opened it and pulled out a notice approving a home-equity loan for $85,000.

“What is this?” I asked.

Callum reached for the document.

Ruth blocked him with her arm.

“Don’t,” she said.

“You’ve taken enough.”

My name appeared beside Callum’s at the bottom of the application.

The signature looked like mine until I saw the final letter curling the wrong way.

“I didn’t sign this.”

Callum’s mouth opened, but Lisa spoke first.

“She knew about the loan.”

I turned toward her.

“Say that again.”

“You signed it,” Lisa said.

“Maybe you don’t remember.”

Ruth took out her phone and photographed every page.

“My daughter-in-law remembers her own signature.”

Callum pointed toward the door.

“Mom, leave.”

“No.”

“You’re taking her side over your son?”

“I’m standing beside the person you cheated and stole from.”

Callum grabbed the loan notice from my hands and tore it down the middle.

Ruth calmly raised her phone.

“I photographed it first.”

For the first time that afternoon, Callum looked afraid.

Then the lender’s fraud department called my phone.