Chapter 2 – OUR MONEY

Jason arrived the next afternoon carrying flowers.

Of course he did.

Not grocery-store daisies, either.

Red roses.

Expensive-looking.

The kind of apology he thought could stand in for an actual conversation.

I opened the door but stayed in the doorway.

He looked tired.

His beard had grown in unevenly, and there were dark circles under his eyes.

For half a second, seeing him like that pulled on something familiar inside me.

Eight years together could do that.

You could be furious with someone and still recognize the exact line between their eyebrows when they were worried.

“Hey,” he said softly.

“Hey.”

He lifted the flowers.

“I brought these.”

I looked at them.

“Did you put them on the joint card?”

His face changed.

That answered me.

“Claire.”

“Did you?”

He sighed.

“Yes, but—”

I laughed once.

Not because it was funny.

“You bought me apology flowers with my own money.”

“Our money.”

There it was.

I stepped aside.

“You can get your clothes.”

He came in cautiously.

The house smelled like disinfectant now instead of beer.

Melissa and I had spent almost seven hours cleaning.

I had called a carpet service for the rug.

Two dining chairs were scratched.

One cabinet hinge had been broken.

The broken vase was gone because I couldn’t stand looking at it.

Jason glanced around.

“Looks better.”

I turned.

He must have seen my expression because he immediately added, “I mean—you did a lot.”

“We did.”

“You and Melissa?”

“Yes.”

He nodded like that made sense.

I waited.

He did not offer to pay for the carpet cleaner.

He did not ask about the damaged furniture.

He did not ask how long it had taken.

He looked toward the stairs.

“Is Evan sleeping?”

“No. He’s watching cartoons.”

“How is he?”

It was the first time Jason had asked me directly since we came home.

“He still has a cough.”

Jason nodded.

“Okay.”

Okay.

I folded my arms.

“Why didn’t you come to the hospital?”

His eyes came back to mine.

“I told you. I had work.”

“For three days?”

“And you were there.”

“He’s your son.”

“I know that.”

“Do you?”

His jaw tightened.

“I’m trying to apologize.”

“No. You’re trying to get back inside.”

“That’s not fair.”

I almost smiled at the word.

Fair.

I had spent three nights sitting beside our child while Jason drank in the house I owned.

He wanted to talk about fair.

He lowered his voice.

“I screwed up, okay? It was stupid. Tyler came over Friday. Then some other guys showed up. We had some drinks. Saturday turned into another thing, and then—”

“And then Sunday accidentally became a third day?”

“I lost track.”

“You lost track of three days while your son was hospitalized?”

He looked away.

“I was stressed too.”

I stared at him.

“What?”

“It was stressful knowing he was sick.”

“You weren’t there.”

“Exactly. I was stressed too.”

For a moment, I had no response.

He genuinely believed those words helped him.

I could see it.

In Jason’s mind, we had both suffered.

I had simply expressed my stress by sleeping in a hospital chair, talking to doctors and holding Evan through coughing fits.

Jason had expressed his with tequila.

“Go get your clothes.”

“Claire.”

“I’m too tired for this conversation.”

He went upstairs.

I stood in the kitchen staring at the flowers he had left on the counter.

Then I remembered the cash advance.

When he came back down carrying an armful of shirts, I blocked the hallway.

“What was the fifteen hundred dollars?”

His expression froze.

There.

A tiny pause.

Not confusion.

Recognition.

“What fifteen hundred?”

“The cash advance.”

He looked toward the kitchen.

“Can we not do this right now?”

My stomach tightened.

“That depends on what it was.”

“I’ll put it back.”

“That’s not an answer.”

He dropped his clothes onto the bench near the door.

“Tyler needed help.”

I thought I had misunderstood.

“What?”

“Tyler was in a rough spot.”

“When?”

“A few months ago.”

I stared at him.

“The cash advance happened during the party.”

“That was part of it.”

“Part of what?”

“He borrowed some money before. I gave him a little more.”

My voice became very quiet.

“How much?”

Jason rubbed his forehead.

“Claire.”

“How much money did you give Tyler?”

“Not that much.”

“Number.”

He looked annoyed now.

That frightened me more than the guilt.

“Maybe five grand total.”

I felt the floor disappear.

“Five thousand dollars?”

“Over time.”

“From where?”

“Our account.”

I laughed again, because apparently my body had forgotten every other reaction.

“You gave him our money?”

“He’s my best friend.”

“And I’m your wife.”

“I know.”

“No, Jason. You clearly don’t.”

“He’s going through stuff.”

“So was our son.”

“That’s cheap.”

“Cheap?”

“Using Evan to win an argument.”

I stared at him.

Then something in me changed.

For years, Jason had possessed an incredible ability to turn a conversation around just before he had to sit with discomfort.

If I asked why he had spent six hundred dollars on concert tickets without discussing it, suddenly the issue became that I never wanted to have fun.

If I reminded him he had promised to pick up Evan, suddenly the problem became that I treated him like an employee.

If I asked him to help around the house, I was controlling.

If I pointed out that he left everything to me, I was keeping score.

He didn’t need to solve problems.

He only needed to make me feel guilty for mentioning them.

I had always mistaken that for conflict.

Now I saw it as strategy.

“Get out.”

His face hardened.

“Seriously?”

“Yes.”

“You’re making everything about money.”

“No. You made choices about our money without me.”

“It’s not like I gambled it.”

“You gave thousands of dollars to Tyler.”

“He needed it.”

“You didn’t tell me.”

“Because you would’ve said no.”

I blinked.

He had said it so casually.

“Exactly.”

“What?”

“You hid it because you knew I would not agree to give away our savings.”

“Our savings?”

I pointed around the house.

“My house. Our savings. My time. My labor. Your assumption.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means you use everything I provide like it just exists for you.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it?”

I pointed toward the living room.

“You turned the house into a bar because I wasn’t here.”

“It was a party.”

“You used our account to pay for it.”

“I’ll pay it back.”

“With what money, Jason? Your salary already goes into the same household.”

He shook his head.

“This is why I didn’t tell you about Tyler.”

I actually smiled.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For finally saying it clearly.”

He looked confused.

“You didn’t tell me because my opinion would have interfered with what you wanted.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“It’s exactly what you meant.”

He grabbed his clothes.

“You know what? Fine. I’ll stay at Tyler’s until you calm down.”

“I am calm.”

“That’s worse.”

“Probably.”

He left.

I locked the door behind him.

That evening, I started going through statements.

At first, I was only looking for the Tyler loan.

Then I found a payment to an auto repair shop from seven months earlier.

$1,284.

I remembered that month.

Jason had told me our credit card balance was high because he had needed new tires.

I opened his car maintenance records.

No tires.

I searched our texts.

Then I remembered Tyler complaining about his transmission.

My throat tightened.

I kept looking.

Two utility payments with Tyler’s address in the transaction note.

A phone bill.

A charge at a mechanic almost a year earlier.

Three separate transfers from Jason’s personal checking account, an account his paycheck passed through before he contributed to household bills.

Individually, none were enormous.

Together, they were thousands.

When I called him, he answered on the fourth ring.

“What?”

“How long have you been paying Tyler’s bills?”

Silence.

“Claire—”

“How long?”

“He helped me out in college.”

“Jason.”

“He let me stay with him for a semester when my roommate bailed. His parents paid for a lot of stuff. He always had my back.”

“That was fifteen years ago.”

“So?”

“So you have a wife and a child now.”

“That doesn’t mean I abandon my friends.”

“Nobody asked you to abandon him.”

“You don’t get it.”

“Then explain it.”

Jason exhaled.

“I owed him.”

“How much?”

“What?”

“How much did you owe him?”

“It’s not a number.”

“Then when were you planning to stop paying?”

He didn’t answer.

I looked down at the statements spread across the dining table.

Suddenly I understood.

Tyler was not just Jason’s friend.

Tyler was an audience.

Around Tyler, Jason was generous.

Relaxed.

Fun.

The guy who bought another round.

The guy who said yes.

The guy who didn’t have to check with his wife.

I had heard Tyler joke about it dozens of times.

**Gotta ask the boss?**

**Claire give you a hall pass?**

Jason always laughed.

Sometimes he rolled his eyes at me afterward like Tyler’s disrespect was harmless.

I had ignored it because I didn’t want to be the humorless wife.

But Jason had been spending our money to protect that version of himself.

A version that had no mortgage.

No sick child.

No daycare pickup.

No budget.

No consequences.

“Did Tyler know Evan was in the hospital?”

I asked.

Jason hesitated.

“Yes.”

“And he still organized the party?”

“He didn’t organize—”

“Jason.”

“He invited some people.”

I closed my eyes.

“Did he ask you to?”

“No.”

“Did he stop you?”

“Stop acting like Tyler controls me.”

That answer told me more than I wanted.

“I need you to stay somewhere else.”

“For how long?”

“I don’t know.”

“This is my home too.”

I looked around.

The scratched table.

The professionally cleaned rug.

The empty shelf where my father’s whiskey had been.

The space where our speaker used to sit.

“No,” I said quietly. “You lived here.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you should probably find the paperwork before you start making claims.”

The next morning, Jason began telling people I had kicked him out of his own house.

I know because two of his friends texted me.

One said marriages shouldn’t end over “a wild weekend.”

Another told me Jason was embarrassed and deserved a chance to explain.

I didn’t respond.

Tyler was louder.

According to Jason, Tyler had told him the same thing again and again.

“She can’t throw you out.”

“You’re married.”

“Half of everything is yours.”

“Go home.”

Jason apparently liked that answer.

Three days later, while Evan was eating cereal at the kitchen island, the doorbell rang.

I looked through the front window.

Jason stood on the porch.

Beside him was a man holding a toolbox.

A locksmith.

For several seconds, I simply watched them.

Then I went to my desk.

I picked up the folder I had already prepared.

And walked to the door.