“He paid for this with the card we use for groceries.”
She read the address. She didn’t take the ticket from me.
“He told me he was using his own money.”
“He’s been saying things like that to both of us, I suppose.”
Christa’s face changed. She wasn’t smiling anymore. “He told me it was his card. He said he was keeping his money separate.”
I told her about the airport, the fishing camp, and the cooler of fish he’d bought at the bait shop. I told her he came home smelling like his brother’s woodstove and kissed me on the cheek.
She sat down at the table. Her hand stayed flat on the wood, and she stared at it.
“I asked him if you knew,” she said. “He said you had made your decision and he had made his.”
“Did you ask him to leave me?”
She looked up. “I told him I wouldn’t move into a house while he was still living with you. He said he was leaving in two weeks.”
There it was. Not an excuse that made me feel better, just another piece of the truth. She’d believed the part that made her comfortable. I had done the same for forty-one years.
I asked for her phone number. She hesitated, then wrote it on the back of a store receipt and handed it to me.
“I don’t want to be part of your fight,” she said.
“It started before I knew about it.”
She looked at the rocking chair. “I know.”
I drove home with the ticket in my purse and Christa’s number tucked behind it. The whole way, I kept seeing the same things: Bill’s hat, the red suitcase, the easy way Christa patted his chest. When I pulled into my driveway, I could see the garden club card through the kitchen window.
I called my daughter again.
“Did you go?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Mom.”
“She says he told her I knew. He also told her the card was his.”
My daughter let out a breath. “Then you have to get the records and talk to somebody before you confront him.”
“I know.”
I did know. I also knew Bill would be home soon, and I didn’t want to spend another night folding shirts for him while pretending I hadn’t heard his voice at the airport.
I went online and printed the card activity for the furniture charge. I put it on the kitchen table with the delivery ticket. The charge was there, and the address matched. No secret account, no complicated trail. Just a transaction on a card we used for groceries.
I called the number on the back of the card and asked how to keep it from being used again. I also called the lawyer my daughter had mentioned. I made an appointment for the next day. The person who answered didn’t promise me anything. She just told me what papers to bring.
I took the fish-fry dish from the cupboard and set it in the sink. I was standing there with a wet cloth in my hand when Bill came in.
“How was the meeting?” I asked.
“Fine,” he said. He set his keys down. “Why?”
“Just asking.”
He looked at the table and saw the delivery ticket. His hand stopped halfway to his wallet.
“Where’d you get that?”
“Your truck.”
He looked at the card activity underneath it. “You went through my things?”
“I looked in the console of the truck we both use.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“It was paid for with our grocery card.”
He picked up the ticket. “It’s a bed and a chair, Earlene. It’s not like I bought a boat.”
I was angry, and I said something I regret. “You should’ve bought a second life with your own money.”
He set the ticket down hard. “I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
“After I had things worked out.”
“What’s worked out? The furniture? The house? Christa?”
He didn’t answer me. He rubbed his knee and looked toward the window, as if the answer might be outside.
“She says you told her I knew.”
“I told her we were having problems.”
“We still share a bed.”
“We’ve been together a long time,” he said. “You know things haven’t been right.”
I couldn’t believe he was asking me to accept that as the same thing as agreement. I felt my face get hot.
“Did you tell her we were separating?”
He rubbed his forehead. “I said I was going to leave.”
“Did you tell her I knew?”
He stared at the floor. “I didn’t want to make it worse.”
“How did you think this was going to go?”
He looked up at me then, with a little smirk that made me angrier than the ticket had.
“You’d make a scene and turn the family against me over a bed?”
The sentence stayed there between us. For a second, I almost did what I’d done so many times before. I wanted to say, “You know I wouldn’t.” I wanted to make it easier for him to take back what he’d said.
Instead, I said, “You used our grocery card to buy furniture for the woman you kissed at the airport.”
His face changed when I said the word kissed. He glanced at the front window.
My daughter had arrived while we were talking. She stood just inside the doorway, still wearing her work badge. She had heard enough to know I wasn’t making it up.
“Dad,” she said, “you told Mom you were at the fishing camp.”
“I was with my brother part of the weekend.”
“That isn’t what she asked.”
He tried to turn toward her, but she stayed by the door. She didn’t move to comfort him.
“She was going to find out,” he said.
“That’s your answer?” I asked.
He lowered himself into a chair. “I needed time.”
“For what?”
“To get settled. To figure out what I could afford.”
The furniture ticket sat between us. I looked at the list again, especially the rocking chair with its tags still on. I had been expecting him to say he was leaving because he had finally fallen in love. Now he was saying he’d planned the move first and expected us both to wait while he arranged it.
“What did you tell Christa about me?” I asked.
“Nothing that concerns you.”
“It concerns me if you used my money to make your new place.”
He looked toward my daughter, then back to me. “I thought I could pay it back.”
“With what?”
He didn’t have an answer ready. For once, I watched him struggle to find a story that fit both women at the same time.
I picked up Christa’s number. “I’m calling her. She can tell us what you told her.”
“Don’t drag her into this.”
