Chapter 4 - The Morning the Cards Stopped Working
Kendall came down at 8:15 looking like a magazine. Cream trousers, black blouse, sunglasses pushed up on her head. She scooped her handbag off the hook.
"I'm driving into Raleigh."
I was at the island with a cup of coffee. "For what?"
"Shopping."
"With what money?"
She smiled at me like I was slow. "Ours."
Her phone rang before she reached the door. She answered without looking. "This is Kendall."
Three seconds, and her whole face rearranged itself. "What do you mean, declined? … No. Run it again." A pause. "That's not possible."
She dug out her wallet. Second card. Declined. Third card. Declined.
She turned around and looked at me.
"What did you do?"
I took a sip. "Made a few phone calls last night."
The sunglasses came down off her head and into her hand. "You froze my cards."
"I froze access to accounts that are connected to money that isn't yours."
"What are you talking about?"
"My mother's retirement account, Kendall."
For one second, she stalled out. Then she laughed, loud and sharp. "Oh my God. This again."
"This what?"
"Your mother is confused, Daniel. She doesn't remember signing things. She barely knows what day it is."
"Do you?"
"Do I what?"
"Remember signing her name."
She just stared at me.
"I helped her," she said.
"You helped her move two hundred fourteen thousand dollars into a company you registered."
Her face went flat. That number landed. She hadn't known I had it.
"You went through my accounts."
"They're not your accounts."
"We are married."
"That doesn't turn my mother's pension into yours."
"You're being insane."
I slid one sheet across the island. KRA Lifestyle Group. Her company, her name on the registration.
Her jaw twitched.
I laid down another. Then another. The jeweler. The apartment deposit. The travel agency.
She looked at the papers. Then at me. "You've been spying on me for months."
"I found this last night."
"You set me up."
"You did this to yourself."
"You're picking that woman over your own wife."
I almost laughed at that. "That woman is my mother. She's upstairs because she can't reach the crackers."
"And I am your wife."
"Not for much longer."
The kitchen went quiet. She took a step toward me.
"You don't mean that."
"I filed this morning. Before you woke up."
"You'd blow up six years over your mother being dramatic?"
"I'd blow up six years because you starved her."
"I put her on a diet."
"You put a lock on the food."
"She was eating us out of house and home."
"She lost twenty pounds, Kendall. Her hands shake."
"She needed to lose it."
I stared at her. And then she said the thing that killed whatever was left.
"She was never supposed to still be here. It was six weeks. Six weeks."
There it was. Not one ounce of guilt. Just resentment that my mother had overstayed.
"She took over our whole life," Kendall said. "Every dinner, every weekend, everything is Margaret."
"So you robbed her."
"I was managing her money."
"Into a downtown penthouse with your name on the lease."
Her mouth closed hard.
"What was the apartment for?" I said.
She didn't answer.
And then my wife slapped me across the face.
Hard enough that my neck cracked. The sound bounced off the cabinets.
She stood there staring at her own hand like it belonged to someone else.
A small voice came from the hall. "Daniel."
Mom. Standing in the doorway in her robe. She'd seen it.
So had the camera.
May you like
I touched my cheek and looked at Kendall.
"Thank you," I said. "You just made the rest of this a lot simpler."
