“She admitted it,” Sam said softly. “She said Paul ruined her business by exposing quality issues. She wanted revenge. She said she wanted you to hurt the way she hurt.”
I felt tears finally break free.
“And the children?”
“They’re her husband’s,” Sam whispered. “Always were.”
Relief hit me so violently it almost hurt.
Because for twenty-four hours, I had buried my husband twice.
Once physically.
And once emotionally.
Only to discover the second death was built entirely on cruelty.
After Sam left, I went upstairs and picked up Paul’s journal again.
I sat on the bedroom floor beside our bed and opened a blank notebook.
Then slowly—
I started writing.
About the rose.
The note.
The cameras.
The lies.
About grief and rage and how easy it is to destroy someone already broken open by loss.
And eventually, after hours of crying quietly in the room we once shared, I understood something important:
My marriage was never perfect.
Paul was stubborn.
Human.
Complicated.
But he loved me.
That truth existed long before Nancy’s lies.
And it still existed afterward too.
Because when I reread those journals now, one thing appears over and over again between grocery lists, arguments, memories, and ordinary little moments:
“I love her.”
He never stopped writing that.
