My MIL packed up all the food at my husband's birthday party into containers — so I finally made her understand that this wasn't normal.

The party ended around seven.

Daniel and I cleaned up together, mostly in silence.

Not an uncomfortable silence — more like the kind that follows something big, when both people are still processing and words feel too small.

He washed.

I dried.

The containers Linda had left behind sat on the counter, still full.

"What do you want to do with all of this?" I asked.

"Send it to Carol.

She's got that big family."

I nodded.

I started transferring the food into our own containers, the ones with the lids that actually sealed.

"Daniel."

"Yeah."

"Thank you.

For what you said today."

He handed me a clean dish.

"I should have said it a long time ago."

That was all.

We didn't turn it into a conversation.

It didn't need to be one.

By eight-thirty, the kids were in bed and Daniel had fallen asleep on the couch with the television on low.

I sat at the kitchen table with a cup of tea and my phone, answering a few messages from guests who had texted to say they'd had a good time — which felt strange and also kind, given everything.

My phone lit up just after nine.

A text from a number I didn't recognize.

*You think you won today.

You didn't.

He always comes back to us.

He always has.*

I stared at it.

Then a second message arrived.

*Ask him about the money he sends every month.

Ask him where it goes.

See what he says.*

I set the phone face-down on the table.

My tea had gone cold.

I turned the phone back over and read both messages again, slowly, the way you read something you're hoping will mean something different the second time.

It didn't.

I thought about waking Daniel.

I looked through the kitchen doorway at him on the couch, one arm over his face, breathing steadily.

I didn't wake him.

Instead I went to the small desk in the corner of the kitchen where we kept the household files — utility bills, insurance papers, the kids' school documents.

I opened the drawer and pulled out the folder where we kept our bank statements.

We had a joint account.

We always had.

I paid the household bills from it.

Daniel's salary went in every two weeks.

I found the last three months of statements and sat back down at the table.

I went through them line by line.

There was a transfer.

The same amount.

Every month.

On the fourteenth.

Four hundred dollars.