Chapter 4 - The Letter I Should Have Opened
I sat alone at my kitchen table with Marc Delacroix’s five-year-old letter trembling between my fingers.
The house was silent.
Upstairs, my daughters slept.
Outside, rain tapped gently against the windows.
I read the next paragraph.
Then everything changed.
Marc admitted that he had intercepted attempts to reach Julien during my pregnancy.
Not because he knew about the triplets at first.
Because he believed our marriage was becoming a threat to the company.
According to Marc, Julien had begun considering decisions that terrified investors.
He wanted to slow expansion.
Delegate authority.
Spend more time with me.
Start a family.
Marc viewed those decisions as weakness.
Then came the messages on my phone.
Julien’s suspicion.
Our argument.
Marc saw an opportunity.
He didn’t invent Julien’s jealousy.
He fed it.
He encouraged every doubt.
When my attorney sent medical documentation to Julien’s legal team, Marc ensured Julien never saw it.
When my mother called after I was hospitalized, Marc’s office intercepted the message.
The letter was not a confession born from morality.
It was justification.
I did what was necessary to protect what we built.
My stomach turned.
At the bottom, one final sentence:
By the time Julien understands, you will both have moved on.
I stared at those words until anger replaced shock.
At 6:10 the next morning, I called Julien.
He answered immediately.
“Évelyne?”
“We need to talk.”
“What happened?”
“Come alone.”
Thirty-five minutes later, he stood in my kitchen.
He looked as though he hadn’t slept.
I placed the letter on the table.
“What is this?”
“Read.”
He did.
I watched his face.
Confusion.
Recognition.
Disbelief.
Then fury.
“Where did you get this?”
“It was mailed to me after the girls were born.”
“You never read it?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because at that point anything connected to you felt like another wound.”
He read it again.
“This could be fake.”
“It’s Marc’s handwriting.”
“I know.”
“Then why say it?”
“Because I don’t want it to be true.”
That, at least, I understood.
Julien called his attorney.
Not Marc.
A different one.
He requested archived correspondence from the divorce.
By noon, we had confirmation.
My medical documents had arrived.
So had notices about my hospitalization.
Someone from Julien’s office had acknowledged receiving them.
Julien had never been shown any of it.
His face was pale.
“He knew.”
“Yes.”
“He knew you were telling the truth.”
“Eventually, yes.”
“And still…”
Julien couldn’t finish.
I sat across from him.
“Marc didn’t create what happened between us.”
Julien looked up.
“He manipulated it.”
“Yes. But you gave him something to manipulate.”
The words landed.
“You didn’t trust me.”
“I know.”
“You wouldn’t listen.”
“I know.”
“You refused to look at the ultrasound.”
His eyes lowered.
“I know.”
I needed him to understand this because blaming Marc would be easy.
Too easy.
Marc had interfered.
But Julien had made choices.
“If we ever build anything resembling a healthy relationship for the girls, you cannot rewrite our history so Marc becomes responsible for everything.”
Julien remained silent.
Then nodded.
“You’re right.”
I hadn’t expected the admission.
“I was jealous,” he continued. “And insecure. I was terrified that the one person who knew me before the money had decided I wasn’t enough.”
I stared at him.
“So you destroyed us before I could supposedly destroy you.”
“Yes.”
For the first time, Julien wasn’t defending himself.
He was explaining without excusing.
That mattered.
Not enough for forgiveness.
But it mattered.
“What are you going to do about Marc?”
“Find out exactly what he did.”
“Quietly.”
His eyes sharpened.
“Why quietly?”
“Because our daughters exist now. If this becomes a public corporate scandal, their names could be dragged into it.”
Julien nodded immediately.
“No press.”
“No revenge spectacle.”
“Agreed.”
“And no using your company to crush him.”
A humorless smile appeared.
“You remember me well.”
“Unfortunately.”
Over the next several weeks, Julien became part of our lives carefully.
Tuesday afternoons.
Saturday lunches.
Occasional video calls.
The girls adapted faster than either of us.
Children don’t care about corporate empires.
They care whether you remember which stuffed rabbit sleeps on which pillow.
Julien learned.
Sophie hated crusts.
Amélie loved astronomy.
Lucie believed rules were opening offers in a negotiation.
One Saturday, I walked into the living room and found all four asleep.
The girls had built a blanket fort.
Julien lay awkwardly on the carpet, one arm trapped beneath Sophie’s head, Lucie’s feet across his chest.
I stood there longer than necessary.
Five years earlier, that image would have been ordinary.
Now it felt impossible.
Julien opened one eye.
“Help.”
I whispered, “Absolutely not.”
“Évelyne.”
“You’re their father.”
“This is your responsibility now.”
He smiled.
And for one dangerous second, we were us again.
I walked away before the feeling could grow.
The investigation into Marc continued.
Eventually, Julien discovered something else.
Marc had profited enormously from keeping him consumed by the company.
During the divorce, Marc quietly acquired interests connected to several expansion deals.
The more Julien worked, the more Marc gained influence.
The marriage had been inconvenient.
My pregnancy would have been worse.
Then Julien found an archived voicemail.
My mother’s voice.
Weak with fear.
“Mr. Valois, Évelyne has been admitted to the hospital. The doctors are worried about the babies. Whatever happened between you, please call her.”
Julien listened once.
Then again.
He sat down.
I had never seen a man look so devastated.
“When was this?”
I checked the date.
“The night I went into premature labor.”
His eyes closed.
“I was in Singapore.”
“Yes.”
“I remember.”
I didn’t ask why.
He told me anyway.
“Marc convinced me to stay for the acquisition.”
Silence.
Then Julien whispered:
“I could have been there.”
That was when footsteps appeared behind us.
Lucie stood in the doorway.
She had heard enough to understand one word.
“Babies?”
Julien quickly stopped the recording.
Lucie looked from him to me.
“Were we the babies?”
I nodded.
She approached Julien.
“Why are you crying?”
Julien tried to compose himself.
“I missed something important.”
Lucie climbed onto the chair beside him.
Then, with the uncomplicated compassion only a child can possess, she hugged his arm.
“You’re here now.”
Julien looked at me over her head.
And something inside me cracked.
Not healed.
Cracked.
Because Lucie was right.
The past could not be changed.
But the present was happening whether I trusted it or not.
Then Julien’s phone rang.
He checked the screen.
His expression hardened.
“Marc.”
I looked at him.
Julien answered.
“Hello.”
Marc spoke long enough for Julien’s face to change.
Then Julien said, “No. Don’t come to my office.”
Another pause.
“Come to my house tonight.”
He ended the call.
“What does he want?” I asked.
Julien looked at the old letter on the table.
“He knows I found out.”
May you like
And that evening, after five years of silence, the man who had helped destroy our marriage was finally going to explain why.
---
