Chapter 5 - MATTHEW’S VERSION OF LOVEMatthew contacted Emily through an attorney after being told not to communicate directly while the investigation developed.
His first message was not an apology.
It was a request.
He wanted access to the house.
His work laptop was inside.
Several suits.
Medication.
Personal financial documents.
Emily laughed when the lawyer relayed it.
Not because it was funny.
Because Matthew had spent three years telling her the house was his whenever they fought.
Now suddenly he was asking permission to collect a laptop.
The property itself was not secretly Emily’s.
No billionaire twist.
They had bought the suburban house together five years earlier.
Both names were on the deed and mortgage.
That meant Emily could not simply erase him from his own residence.
Her attorney helped arrange a lawful property retrieval.
Emily chose not to be there.
I was asked not to be there either.
Good.
A neutral civil standby handled it.
Matthew collected his clothes, medication, laptop, and some personal items.
Jessica came with him.
She tried to enter.
She was refused because the arrangement covered Matthew, not her.
That apparently enraged her more than anything else.
The next day she called Emily from an unknown number.
Emily did not answer.
Voicemail:
Your father is enjoying this. Don’t let that old badge destroy your husband.
Emily saved it.
Then another:
Matthew loves you. You’re punishing him for one bad night.
One bad night.
We now had records from at least four.
Emily blocked the number.
Then she told me something harder.
Matthew could be kind.
I knew that.
But hearing Emily say it mattered.
He made her coffee every morning.
Remembered her mother’s birthday.
Drove two hours to rescue her when her car broke down in a snowstorm.
Held her when she miscarried their first pregnancy.
Domestic violence did not require every memory to be false.
That complexity had helped trap her.
“If he was horrible all the time,” Emily said, “I would’ve left.”
I nodded.
Matthew’s apologies were never empty either.
He cried.
He scheduled counseling twice.
He stopped drinking for four months.
Then the control returned.
Each improvement made Emily believe the worst version of him had been temporary.
Jessica reinforced that belief.
“His father was the same when he was under pressure,” she would say.
“He grew out of it.”
Matthew’s father had been dead seven years.
I had met him only twice.
May you like
I began wondering what Jessica meant by the same.
The answer would eventually explain why she could stand over my daughter on a rug and say she deserved worse without hearing herself.
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