The one you both contributed to for emergencies.”
I set the papers down on the bench beside me.
“How did you get these?” I asked.
“Cassandra has a younger sister.
She’s in the nursing program here.
She found out what was happening and she came to me three weeks ago.
She didn’t know what to do.” He looked at the ground.
“Neither did I, honestly.
I kept thinking there had to be a better moment.
A private moment.
I’m sorry it came to this.”
I picked up the photographs again.
In the last one, Nathan and Cassandra were standing in front of a building I now recognized as the Riverside apartment.
He had his arm around her.
They were both smiling.
The photo was dated four months ago.
I had been working a double shift that weekend.
I remembered it specifically because the restaurant’s dishwasher had broken down and I’d stayed three hours past my scheduled end time.
I’d come home at midnight.
Nathan had been asleep.
Or I had thought he was asleep.
“Does he know you have these?” I asked.
Daniel shook his head.
“No.”
I stood up.
I gathered the photographs, the screenshots, the property document, and placed them carefully back in the envelope.
“Where is he right now?” I asked.
Daniel glanced toward the courtyard.
“Still near the front steps.
His parents just arrived.”
His parents.
I had met his parents at our wedding.
His mother had held my hands and told me I was the best thing that had ever happened to her son.
“Does his family know?” I asked.
Daniel hesitated just long enough.
