“What happens now?”

“Now we file motions that will freeze every account, investigate every hidden asset, and force your husband to explain where every dollar has gone for the past five years. And, Mrs. Gillian?”

“Yes?”

“We’re going to request that all proceedings be conducted with full transparency, including any testimony from your granddaughter that the court deems relevant.”

As we drove home, Emily asked the question that had been hanging over all of us since this nightmare began.

“Grandma Kathy, when the judge hears about all the bad things Grandpa did, will you get to keep your house?”

“I hope so, sweetheart.”

“And will you have enough money to take care of yourself?”

“I think I might have more money than I realized. But Emily, even if I didn’t, we’d figure out how to take care of each other.”

“Good, because I don’t want you to be sad anymore.”

I looked in the rearview mirror at my eight-year-old granddaughter, who’d somehow become my most effective ally in fighting a battle I’d never expected to face, and realized that sometimes the most powerful advocates came in the smallest packages. Some husbands made the mistake of underestimating both their wives and their grandchildren. But some eight-year-olds had better moral compasses than the adults who thought children weren’t paying attention to conversations that would determine their families’ future.

Tomorrow, Robert would learn that his carefully planned financial betrayal had been observed, documented, and reported by the granddaughter he’d dismissed as too young to understand adult relationships. Some surprises, I was beginning to understand, were worth waiting 64 years to deliver.

Robert’s reaction to the asset freeze order was swift and predictable. My phone rang at 7:23 a.m., less than 12 hours after Patricia Williams had filed the emergency motions that locked down every account, investment, and property transfer he’d made in the past five years.

“Catherine, what the hell do you think you’re doing? My attorney says you’ve frozen our joint accounts and you’re demanding access to private investment records.”

His voice carried a fury I’d rarely heard in four decades of marriage, the anger of someone whose carefully laid plans had been disrupted by an opponent he’d underestimated.

“I’m protecting myself from financial fraud, Robert. Which is what people do when they discover their spouses have been hiding assets and stealing from their retirement accounts.”

“Stealing? Catherine, you don’t understand complex financial planning. Everything I’ve done has been legal investment management.”

“Including the offshore accounts you never told me about? Including forging my signature on investment transfers? Including giving Sharon access to my teacher’s retirement fund?”

The silence on the other end of the line told me everything I needed to know. Robert hadn’t expected me to discover the full scope of his financial manipulations, and he certainly hadn’t expected me to know about Sharon’s involvement in planning our divorce.

“Catherine, I don’t know what you think you found, but you’re making a serious mistake by turning this into a contentious legal battle. I was trying to handle our separation quietly and fairly.”

“Fairly? Robert, you’ve been planning to leave me with virtually nothing while you and your girlfriend build a new life in Florida with money you’ve stolen from my retirement savings.”

“How did you—”

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