Chapter 4: What the Card Already Knew
Mark stayed at the kitchen table while I went through the credit card statement properly — not just the last two charges, but the last three months.
I had never done this before.
Not because I wasn't allowed to.
The account was in both our names.
But Eric handled the finances.
He said it was easier.
He said I didn't need to worry about it.
He said he had a system.
He had a system.
I scrolled back to January.
There were charges I didn't recognize, but none that screamed anything on their own.
A restaurant here.
A parking garage there.
Amounts that were easy to dismiss.
Then I started writing them down.
"Talk me through what you're seeing," Mark said.
"There's a restaurant called Olio.
I've never heard of it.
He went three times in January, twice in February, once in March."
"Same day of the week?"
I checked.
"Thursdays."
Mark said nothing.
He didn't need to.
"There's a florist charge in February," I said.
"Valentine's Day week." I looked up.
"He gave me a plant.
A potted succulent.
He said he wasn't a flowers person."
Mark's jaw tightened slightly.
Just enough for me to notice.
I kept going.
A hotel charge in February — one night, a place called The Meridian, two hours from here.
Eric had told me that weekend he was visiting his college friend Dave in Pittsburgh.
I had made him a sandwich for the road.
I had stood at the door and waved.
"Pittsburgh is north," I said.
"The Meridian is south."
I put the pen down.
My daughter's drawing was on the refrigerator.
She was eight.
She'd drawn our family in crayon — me, Eric, herself, and our dog Biscuit.
She'd given Eric the biggest smile.
"How long do you think this has been going on?" I asked.
"I don't know," Mark said.
"But the pattern in that statement goes back at least three months that you can see."
"The account only shows ninety days."
He nodded.
I picked up my phone.
Eric's unanswered text was still on the screen.
*Everything okay at home?*
I thought about typing back yes.
I had typed back yes so many times.
Yes, everything's fine.
Yes, I managed.
Yes, I figured it out.
I put the phone in my pocket without answering.
"There's something else I want to check," I said.
I went to the bedroom.
Mark waited in the kitchen — he was that kind of person, careful about boundaries even now.
I opened the drawer on Eric's side of the bed.
He kept it mostly empty.
A phone charger, some change, a pen.
But underneath the charger, folded once, was a receipt.
Paper.
Printed.
The kind you get when you pay cash and the machine still spits one out.
Dinner for two.
A place called Lena's.
Last Thursday.
The Thursday before he left for his conference that started on Thursday but that he'd left for on Monday.
At the bottom of the receipt, handwritten in ink that wasn't Eric's: *Same time next week?
— L*
I stood in the bedroom doorway holding a piece of paper.
May you like
Mark looked at my face.
"I found a name," I said.
