Chapter 4
We didn’t drive toward the house.
At the first intersection, Gwen pointed toward a bank branch she recognized. She didn’t explain why she wanted to go there, and I didn’t ask her to. The envelope of records rested on her lap, held shut beneath one hand.
“You can get a history of the transfers?” she asked.
“I can ask.”
“Then ask.”
Inside, the air smelled of carpet cleaner and burnt coffee. A television murmured above the waiting chairs, showing a smiling family gathered around a kitchen island. Gwen glanced at it once, then lowered her eyes to the envelope.
When the employee at the desk asked what we needed, I started to answer. Gwen touched my wrist—not to stop me from helping, just to remind me she could speak for herself.
“I need a record of the transfers from his account,” she said. “The dates, the amounts, and the destination listed for each one.”
The employee turned to me to confirm I was the account holder. I answered, provided what was needed, then let Gwen take the lead again. She explained that we were trying to compare the transfer history with other records. Her voice shook on one word, steadied on the next.
The employee printed what she could verify: outgoing transfers, dates, amounts, and the destination information attached to them. She laid the pages on the desk and pointed to the limits. The history could confirm what had left my account and where it had been sent. It couldn’t show who had later accessed the receiving account or authorized money to move out of it.
“So this doesn’t tell us who spent it,” I said.
“Not from the sending records,” she replied. “I can only speak to the transactions initiated from your account.”
Gwen nodded. She didn’t argue or ask the employee to stretch what she knew. She drew the pages toward her and began lining them up with the copies from her envelope.
The dates formed a pattern.
Not a guess. Not a feeling she had carried alone for months. A pattern in ink: transfers to Margaret’s account, followed by payments recorded in the household papers and the expenses tied to the truck. On several dates, the money leaving my account landed close to the weeks when work had appeared at the house or new purchases had arrived.
Gwen held one page beside another.
“That one,” she said, tapping the date with her fingernail. “The cabinets came that week.”
She moved to the next entry.
“And that was the truck.”
The bank employee had said the records couldn’t prove who authorized every movement after the money reached its destination. Gwen knew that. She wasn’t trying to make the pages say more than they did. She was showing me how the dates fit beside what she had watched happen.
I looked at the figures, then at her hand. The same hand that had gathered the records, marked the questions, and kept track while everyone around her insisted there was nothing to see.
“I believe you,” I said.
Gwen kept her eyes on the paper. “You don’t have to say that because I’m sick.”
“I’m saying it because you brought me the records, and the dates match what you told me.”
For a moment, she didn’t move. Then she let out a breath that seemed to have been caught behind her ribs.
“I thought you’d ask me to prove it,” she said.
I had no answer that could make that thought less true. The pages between us were proof enough of what they showed—and not enough to undo the years I had accepted assurances from home without looking closer.
The employee gathered the copies into a neat stack and slid them across the desk. I reached for them, then stopped. Gwen picked them up and placed them in the envelope herself.
Outside, she held the envelope against her coat.
“Now we have something with the bank’s name on it,” she said.
“Something that confirms the transfers.”
“Not what happened after.”
“No.”
She looked toward the street, where traffic slid past under a low gray sky. “It’s still more than I had before.”
I wanted to tell her I’d make it right. The promise rose quickly, easy and useless. Instead, I asked, “What do you want to do now?”
“Keep the copies. Don’t send them to anyone yet.” She looked at me to make sure I understood. “And don’t go back because somebody says we have to.”
“I won’t.”
Her phone buzzed in her coat pocket. She checked the screen, then turned it so I could see. A message from Margaret.
Where are you? Come home. We need to talk.
Gwen’s jaw tightened. “She knows we’re not there.”
My phone buzzed before I could answer. Margaret’s name appeared on the screen. I opened the message.
Bring Gwen home, then come inside alone. There are things we need to settle without her.
The words seemed to darken the bright bank windows around us.
Gwen read them over my shoulder. She didn’t ask me to choose her. She didn’t need to.
I looked up from the phone. “She wants me there without you.”
May you like
“Yes,” Gwen said. “She does.”
The bank had confirmed where the money went first. Margaret’s message made clear what she wanted next: me alone, before I could ask her anything else.
