Chapter 8 - Apartment Door at Midnight
The apartment door stuck the way it always did when the humidity was up, and I had to put my shoulder into it. It was just after midnight. The hallway light buzzed and threw a thin yellow line across the carpet.
Inside, it was too quiet. No TV left on, no ice in the freezer humming, nothing to cover the sound of my own breathing. I locked the deadbolt and the chain and stood there with my back against the wood for a minute, because my feet hurt too much to move.
The gown smelled like tomato and perfume and sweat. Under the chandeliers it had looked champagne. In the overhead light of our entryway it looked gray, with a dark red stain spread down the front where Daniel's sleeve had brushed me when security pulled him back. I didn't want to look at it anymore.
I kicked off my heels by the door. One tipped over and left a small scuff on the baseboard. I left it there.
In the bedroom I didn't turn on the big light. I used the lamp by my side of the bed. The shade was crooked from where Daniel had knocked it weeks ago reaching for his phone. My hands shook when I tried to work the little hook at the back of the dress. The fabric had tightened around my ribs during dinner, or maybe I was just swollen from standing so long. I finally got it loose and stepped out of it and let it fall in a heap on the floor.
I stood in my underwear and looked at my belly in the mirror on the closet door. Seven months. The skin was stretched tight and the baby was pressed hard to one side, making a ridge under my ribs. I put both hands over it.
"I'm sorry," I whispered. "We're home now."
I pulled on his old gray sweatpants and one of my nursing tank tops, the ones I'd bought early because the nurse at the clinic said to get comfortable early. The cotton felt cold and clean. I washed my face and hands in the bathroom sink with dish soap because we'd run out of the gentle stuff, and I scrubbed under my nails until the red was gone. My ponytail had come half undone. I pulled the elastic out and let my hair fall. It smelled like soup too.
In the kitchen I poured a glass of water and drank half of it standing up. The apartment was cold. Daniel always set the thermostat low when we went out so we wouldn't waste money. The irony sat in my throat.
I didn't want to check. That was the truth. I sat at the little table by the window with my phone in both hands and stared at the black screen for a long time. Traffic went by on the county road below, headlights sweeping the blinds.
Carol's words from the service hallway were still looping: shortfall. Cover it quietly. Don't embarrass us. Daniel's laugh before that. And before that, in the months before, the little things — him saying the autopay bounced because the bank made an error, him saying the foundation would reimburse us for the gala table, him telling me not to worry about the savings because interest was better if we left it alone.
I opened the bank app.
The checking balance showed $212.46. The joint savings, the one we'd started when I got pregnant, the one where we'd put the tax refund and half my paychecks from the school office, showed $38.19.
I blinked and refreshed. Same numbers.
I tapped into the history. There it was, three days ago: a transfer out for $8,500 to an account ending in 4410. Memo: GALA. Then yesterday: another transfer for $1,200. Memo: FLORALS. No deposit back in. No note about reimbursement.
My thumb hovered over the screen. The baby kicked, sharp under my right ribs, and I pressed my palm there without thinking.
"Okay," I said out loud. "Okay."
I went to the laptop on the counter, the old one with the cracked corner that took forever to boot. While it loaded, I got a plastic grocery bag from under the sink and put the gown inside it, tying the handles in a knot so I wouldn't have to smell it. I wasn't ready to throw it out. I just needed it out of sight.
The bank website showed more detail than the app. I scrolled back two months and saw the pattern: our savings moved in chunks to that same 4410 account. Every time the balance got over two thousand, it was swept out. Daniel's name was on the authorization. Mine wasn't, even though it was joint.
I thought about calling him then. My phone was right there. I could hear how it would go — him tired, driving, saying baby, come on, it's foundation money, it all mixes together, I'll fix it Monday. I didn't press his name. I wasn't going to give him the chance to explain it away while I was still in wet pants and my feet were still throbbing.
Instead I opened my phone camera. I took screenshots first, then I photographed the laptop screen, one page at a time, making sure the dates and the account numbers and the memos were readable. The flash reflected off the screen, so I turned it off and leaned closer. Eight photos. I checked each one, zoomed in, retook two that were blurry. Then I emailed them to myself with the subject line: records.
After I hit send, I sat back. The water glass had left a ring on the table. I wiped it with my sleeve.
The foundation office address was on the gala program still folded in my clutch. Carol kept an office on the second floor of the downtown building with her name on the door. I'd only been there once, to drop off centerpieces. It opened at nine.
I picked up a pen from the junk drawer and wrote on the back of a grocery receipt: Go 9am. Ask for ledger. Don't tell Daniel. I stuck it to the fridge with a magnet shaped like Texas.
May you like
I turned off the kitchen light and lay down on top of the covers in the bedroom, sweatpants and all. I put one hand on my belly and one hand on my phone, where the photos were now saved in two places. The apartment creaked around me. Somewhere down the hall a door closed.
Tomorrow morning, I would go see where our money went.
