Chapter 2
Nobody moved.
Even the baby seemed to quiet for half a second.
I looked from Mark to Ryan.
“Told me what?”
Ryan rubbed a hand over his face.
“Mark, shut up.”
That was when my stomach dropped.
Because innocent people don’t say that.
Mark stared at him.
“Dude.”
“I said shut up.”
I shifted Noah higher against my shoulder.
Our four-year-old daughter, Lily, was still holding the back of my shirt.
I could feel her little fingers trembling.
“Ryan,” I said quietly. “What is he talking about?”
Ryan looked at me.
Then at his friends.
Then back at me.
“It’s nothing.”
Mark let out a short, disbelieving laugh.
“Nothing?”
“Get out.”
Ryan’s voice was suddenly cold.
Mark didn’t move.
Neither did Jason or Chris.
The three men who had spent almost every night sitting on my couch, eating food in my kitchen, and laughing while I took care of two children upstairs now looked deeply uncomfortable.
Mark finally put his beer down.
“Emily, I thought you knew.”
My heart started pounding.
“Knew what?”
Ryan stepped between us.
“She doesn’t need to hear this from you.”
I stared at my husband.
“Apparently I do.”
Ryan lowered his voice.
“Can we talk privately?”
“No.”
His jaw tightened.
“Emily.”
“No. Whatever secret you were comfortable letting your friends know, you can explain in front of them.”
Mark looked at Ryan one last time.
Then he said it.
“Ryan hasn’t had a job for almost four months.”
For a second, I thought I had misunderstood him.
I actually smiled.
Not because it was funny.
Because sometimes your brain rejects something before your heart can process it.
“What?”
Ryan cursed under his breath.
Mark continued.
“The company let him go in May.”
My eyes moved to Ryan.
It was September.
Every morning for four months, he had gotten dressed.
Put on a button-down shirt.
Kissed me goodbye.
Picked up his laptop bag.
And told me he was going to work.
Every evening, he came home around six.
Usually with friends.
Sometimes he complained about traffic.
Sometimes he complained about his boss.
Last Tuesday, he had spent twenty minutes telling me about a meeting that supposedly ran late.
I stared at him.
“You were fired?”
“Let go,” he muttered.
My mouth fell open.
“That’s what you’re correcting?”
“Emily, I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
He didn’t answer.
“Ryan. When?”
“I was handling it.”
“Handling what?”
He looked embarrassed now.
Not guilty.
Embarrassed.
Like the worst part of this was that his friends had seen his wife find out.
“I’ve been applying for jobs.”
Mark’s expression changed.
Ryan noticed.
“What?”
Mark looked away.
I caught it.
“What was that?”
“Nothing,” Ryan said quickly.
I pointed at Mark.
“What was that look?”
Mark sighed.
“Emily, I really don’t want to get in the middle of your marriage.”
“You’re already in my living room five nights a week.”
That landed.
Jason stood up.
“I think we should go.”
Ryan turned sharply.
“Sit down.”
“No,” Jason said. “This is family stuff.”
I looked at all three of them.
“How long have you known?”
Nobody answered immediately.
My throat tightened.
“How long?”
Chris finally spoke.
“Since it happened.”
I felt physically sick.
Four months.
They all knew.
The men who shook my hand.
Played with my daughter.
Ate food I bought.
Watched me walk around exhausted with a baby.
They all knew my husband was unemployed while I thought we were a two-income household.
I turned to Ryan.
“Where have you been going every morning?”
His eyes flickered.
“Coffee shops. The library. Interviews.”
Mark looked down again.
I saw it.
“Mark.”
He closed his eyes.
“Some days.”
Ryan stepped toward him.
“Get out of my house.”
Mark stood.
“Gladly.”
Then he looked at me.
“I’m sorry, Emily.”
Ryan pointed at the front door.
“Out.”
Jason and Chris followed Mark.
But before Mark reached the door, I asked one more question.
“Why did you say, ‘You seriously never told her?’”
Mark stopped.
Ryan looked furious.
“Don’t.”
Mark slowly turned.
“Because tonight Ryan was talking about using the rest of the savings to buy into a business with Jason’s cousin.”
The room tilted.
“The rest of what savings?”
Ryan’s face went white again.
Mark looked at me.
And I knew there was another bomb coming.
“The severance money.”
I blinked.
“What severance money?”
Mark frowned.
“He got almost twenty thousand when they let him go.”
I looked at Ryan.
We had less than six thousand dollars in our joint savings account.
At least, that was what I remembered.
I hadn’t checked in several weeks.
We had been saving for years.
Our emergency fund had once been almost thirty thousand dollars.
I handed Noah to Ryan without asking.
He looked startled.
“What are you doing?”
I grabbed my phone.
Opened the banking app.
My fingers were shaking so badly I entered the password wrong twice.
Then the account loaded.
Checking.
$2,184.
Savings.
$1,307.
I stopped breathing.
“No.”
Ryan shifted Noah awkwardly in his arms.
“Emily, listen to me.”
I clicked transaction history.
Withdrawal.
$4,000.
Transfer.
$2,500.
Withdrawal.
$6,000.
Another transfer.
Restaurant charges.
Bars.
Online purchases.
Cash withdrawals.
Week after week.
I scrolled faster.
My eyes blurred.
“Where is our money?”
“I can explain.”
“Where is our money?”
Lily started crying.
“Mommy?”
I immediately crouched beside her.
“It’s okay, sweetheart.”
It wasn’t.
Nothing was okay.
I kissed her forehead.
“Go upstairs to your room for me.”
“I don’t want to.”
“I know. But Mommy needs to talk to Daddy.”
She looked at Ryan.
Then at me.
“Are you mad?”
My chest broke.
“No, baby. You didn’t do anything.”
She slowly walked upstairs.
I waited until I heard her bedroom door.
Then I stood.
“Where is the money?”
Ryan lowered his voice.
“I’ve been covering expenses.”
“With twenty-six thousand dollars?”
“There were bills.”
“What bills?”
“Mortgage. Cars. Insurance. Food.”
“I pay half of those.”
He looked away.
My stomach tightened.
“Ryan.”
Nothing.
“Is the mortgage paid?”
Silence.
I felt ice spread through my body.
“Is. The. Mortgage. Paid?”
“It’s behind.”
“How far?”
“Emily—”
“How far?”
“Two months.”
I stared at him.
I genuinely couldn’t understand the words.
“We are two months behind on the mortgage?”
“I was going to catch it up.”
“With what?”
“The business opportunity.”
I laughed.
It came out broken.
“So you were going to gamble the last of our money on a business?”
“It wasn’t gambling.”
“You don’t have a job!”
“I’m trying to fix that.”
“By drinking in my living room every night?”
His expression hardened.
“That is not fair.”
I almost couldn’t believe him.
“Not fair?”
“I lost my job, Emily. Do you think that was easy?”
“No. I think lying to your wife for four months was apparently very easy.”
His face twisted.
“I knew you’d react like this.”
Those words changed something inside me.
Not the job loss.
Not even the money.
Those words.
Because suddenly he wasn’t apologizing.
He was blaming me for why he lied.
I stared at him.
“You knew I’d react badly to finding out you lied, drained our savings, and stopped paying our mortgage?”
“I was under pressure.”
“So was I.”
“You don’t understand what it’s like.”
“I work forty hours a week and come home to two children while you sit downstairs drinking.”
“I wasn’t sitting around doing nothing.”
Mark, who had still not left, spoke from the doorway.
“Ryan.”
Ryan whipped around.
“I told you to leave.”
Mark ignored him.
“He turned down two jobs.”
Ryan’s entire body went still.
I looked at Mark.
“What?”
“One was through me. One was through Jason.”
“Mark!”
“He told us they were beneath him.”
I looked at my husband.
He had always been proud.
Sometimes too proud.
But I never imagined this.
“You had job offers?”
“They weren’t real offers.”
“They were interviews.”
Mark shook his head.
“My boss was ready to hire you.”
Ryan yelled, “For sixty thousand!”
I flinched.
Mark stared at him.
“You have two kids.”
Ryan’s face darkened.
“I was making ninety-five.”
“You were making zero.”
Silence.
That sentence hung in the room.
Ryan looked humiliated.
Then furious.
He handed Noah back to me.
“You happy now?”
I stared at him.
“What?”
He pointed at Mark.
“You wanted to humiliate me? Congratulations.”
I held our son against my chest.
And suddenly I saw everything differently.
The beer cans.
The friends.
The late mornings.
The complaints when I asked for help.
The way he had acted as though childcare was my responsibility because he was tired from work.
Work that didn’t exist.
“You’re sleeping downstairs tonight.”
Ryan laughed once.
“This is my house too.”
“Then sleep in your living room.”
His expression shifted.
“You don’t get to order me around.”
“I’m not ordering you.”
I looked directly at him.
“I’m telling you I cannot sleep next to you tonight.”
For the first time, he looked scared.
Not angry.
Scared.
“Emily.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
“Please.”
“You lied to me every day for four months.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From what?”
He had no answer.
I turned toward the stairs.
Then my phone buzzed.
I almost ignored it.
It was an email notification.
The subject line made me stop.
PAYMENT FAILED — LITTLE OAKS PRESCHOOL.
I opened it.
Lily’s preschool tuition payment had bounced.
My checking account didn’t have enough money.
Ryan saw my face.
“What?”
I turned the screen toward him.
His shoulders dropped.
I whispered, “You took money from checking too?”
“I was going to put it back.”
“When?”
No answer.
My eyes filled with tears.
I hated that.
I didn’t want to cry in front of him.
But I couldn’t stop it.
I had spent months wondering why I was so tired.
Why everything felt heavy.
Why my husband seemed irritated whenever I needed anything.
All that time, I thought we were partners going through a difficult season.
We weren’t.
I was carrying the family.
And he had been hiding underneath it.
I walked upstairs without another word.
Ryan called my name.
I didn’t turn around.
That night, I locked the bedroom door.
And at 2:13 in the morning, while feeding Noah in the dark, I opened every financial account with my name on it.
That was when I found something even worse.
A credit card I had never applied for.
May you like
Balance:
$14,682.
