Chapter 8
I answered questions about Lucy.
I left the others unanswered.
One afternoon, while Mom held her so I could eat, I began downloading statements from our joint accounts.
December. January. February.
Some payments matched ordinary expenses. Others led back to the apartment address or to merchants listed on the receipts.
There were furniture purchases I hadn't seen in our house.
There were transfers with Paige's name.
I made a spreadsheet because I knew how to make a spreadsheet. I needed one thing in front of me that followed rules.
Mom sat beside me and checked the dates.
“Save the original statements too,” she said.
“I'm doing that.”
“I know. I used to remind people for a living.”
I laughed for the first time in days.
By the end of the week, we had accounted for the missing $28,600.
I put it into groups I could verify: $6,200 in the latest housing payment, $8,200 in furnishings and appliances, $10,400 in earlier housing and household expenses, and $3,800 in direct transfers.
Every total had a document beside it.
There were still questions, but I no longer needed Garrett to explain why the account was nearly empty.
That night, while scrolling through older messages, I found one from Paige.
Thank you for the soup! You are such a sweetheart.
I remembered the afternoon.
I had been twelve weeks pregnant and nauseated by almost every smell in our kitchen. Garrett told me Paige had been sick and had nobody nearby.
So I made chicken soup.
I stood by the stove with the window open, breathing through my mouth, because cooking it made me feel ill.
Garrett kissed me before he left with the container.
“You're a good person.”
I had loved hearing that from him.
Now I wondered what he had said when he carried my soup into her apartment.
Had the affair started by then?
Was she thanking me while he sat beside her?
I put the phone facedown and went to the bathroom so Mom wouldn't hear me cry.
She heard anyway.
When I came back, she had made tea.
“I don't want to become someone who checks everything,” I said.
“You don't have to check everything forever.”
“I work with money all day. How did I miss this?”
Mom waited until I looked at her.
“You thought you were married to someone you could trust.”
I wanted that answer to be enough.