FIVE WASTED YEARS

CHAPTER 9: A WIFE'S DECISION

Nadira spent the next two nights on the floor of a small rented room in Tebet—she had left Rendra's apartment the morning after his threat, taking only what fit in one bag—surrounded by paper.

Every document Rendra had ever handed her, she gathered. Contracts. Agreements. Attachments she had signed in cafés, in the back seats of cars, in the minutes before meetings while Rendra stood over her shoulder saying *just there, and there, it's only a formality.* She had never read most of them properly. Now she did.

There were pages on corporate liability. Clauses about how the foundation's funds were to be used and who would answer for them if they weren't. Her signature appeared on several. The dates showed that she had approved them without understanding even half of what they said.

She felt sick. She remembered laughing at something Rendra said while her pen moved across these very pages. She remembered thinking how lucky she was to have someone so capable looking out for her. Now every one of those signatures looked back at her like a stranger's handwriting—the careless scrawl of a woman she no longer recognized and wasn't sure she had ever really known.

She took everything to an independent lawyer—a woman with no connection to Rendra, recommended by an old university friend. The lawyer read in silence for an hour, then laid down her pen and looked at Nadira over her glasses.

"Don't change anything," she said. "Don't destroy anything. If investigators ask you questions, tell them the truth. All of it." She paused. "I'll be honest with you, Bu Nadira. You may face serious consequences. But they'll be far worse if you try to hide."

For the first time, Nadira truly understood. What she had told herself was an act of compassion—helping a child—could become something very ugly if it weren't brought into the light.

* * *

That afternoon she went home. To the house she had walked out of with two suitcases. She knocked on the door like a guest.

Arga let her in. They sat at the dining table across from each other, the way they used to when they were first married and had nothing but a rice cooker and plans.

She told him. Not everything, but more than she ever had. She had lied about meeting Rendra—not once, many times. Bandung had been a lie. She had hidden business documents that carried his name. And her relationship with Rendra… She stopped, and started again. Her emotional relationship with Rendra had gone far beyond friendship.

She didn't explain what that meant. She wasn't ready. Arga didn't ask. Some doors, he thought, didn't need to be opened for you to know what was behind them.

"I know an apology won't bring back your trust," Nadira said. Her eyes were glassy. "I'm not asking it to. I just want to stop lying. And I want to give you these." She placed a thick folder on the table between them. "I think they might prove what Rendra's really been doing."

Arga didn't accept the apology. Not then. Instead he opened the folder, and they went through it together, page by page, while the afternoon light crept slowly across the floor. He marked sections with a pencil—things Dimas would need to see, dates that didn't line up, a signature that looked hurried. It was the most time they had spent side by side in months.

When they were done, he closed the folder and rested his hand on it.

"I appreciate that you had the courage to speak," he said. "I mean that. But honesty that comes this late, Nadira—it doesn't automatically heal five years of wounds."

She nodded quickly, as though she had expected exactly that, and still it struck her.

"I can't force you to forgive me," she said, holding back tears. "I just hope that someday you'll see I'm trying to fix what I did. Even if…" Her voice broke. "Even if it's already too late."

Arga looked at her for a long moment.

"Right now," he said, "what matters is Alif. Making sure he's protected. Making sure his family gets the chance to meet him." He chose his next words carefully. "Our marriage is something we'll talk about separately. I won't let that boy become a reason to stay together. Or a reason to split apart. He's not a bargaining chip."

Nadira agreed. But her face, as she gathered her bag, betrayed what she didn't say aloud: she was terrified of losing him completely.

At the door she hesitated, one hand on the frame, as if there were something more she wanted to say. Arga waited. The moment stretched. Then she only whispered, "Thank you for listening," and walked out to her car, and he was left wondering what the unspoken thing had been.

* * *

A few days later, Nadira handed her documents to the authorities through her lawyer.

Rendra found out within hours. Her phone lit up again and again—fourteen missed calls, then twenty, then thirty. Messages that began reasonable and grew colder with each one. *Let's talk. Call me. You're making a mistake. You have no idea what you're doing. Answer the phone, Nadira.*

She didn't answer. She turned the phone face down on the thin mattress and sat with her back against the wall, listening to the squeak of the ceiling fan.

For the first time in her life, Nadira chose to face the consequences of her own decisions instead of sheltering behind someone else's power.

* * *

That night, Dimas called Arga.

"The report's been taken up," he said. "They're examining the documents. And they want statements—from Nadira, and from several former foundation staff."

Arga stood at the window, looking out at the dark street, at the streetlight where Siska had once stood shaking.

"So it's real now," he said.

"It's real."

The fight wasn't over. Arga knew that. Men like Rendra did not go quietly, and somewhere out there he was surely already planning his next move. But at least the truth no longer lived only in anonymous messages sent at midnight.

Far off, a siren began to wail. Arga listened to it the way he always did, wondering where it was headed and who was waiting at the other end.

He had no idea that very soon, it would be calling for him.