My son-in-law mocked my daughter's new haircut in front of everyone.

I stared at the screen for a long time.

Frank read it over my shoulder.

Neither of us spoke.

I typed back: *Who is this?*

Three dots appeared.

Then stopped.

Then appeared again.

*Someone who works with Ethan.

I can't say more than that.

Just ask her about the account he opened in March.*

I set the phone face-down on the table.

"Don't," Frank said.

"I'm not doing anything."

"You have that look."

"I'm standing still, Frank.

This is me standing still."

I picked the phone back up and read the message again.

*The account he opened in March.* Claire and Ethan had been married for six years.

I knew they had a joint checking account, a mortgage, two car payments.

I did not know about anything opened in March.

I didn't call Claire that night.

I'd promised.

I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling and thought about her hands on the edge of the table, knuckles white, and the way she'd said *it costs less than the alternative* like she'd done the math so many times it had stopped feeling like a calculation.

I called her the next morning, after Frank left for his walk.

"Morning, Mom."

"Morning, sweetheart.

How are you?"

"Fine." The word came out flat and practiced.

"How's Ethan?"

A half-second pause.

"He's at work."

"Claire, I need to ask you something and I need you not to get upset with me."

Silence.

"Do you have a joint account that Ethan opened in March?"

The silence this time was different.

Longer.

The kind that has a shape to it.

"Where did you hear that?"

"Someone texted me last night.

I don't know who.

They said I should ask you about it."

"Someone texted you." Her voice had gone very careful.

"What number?"

"I don't know.

It came up as unknown."

"Mom." She said my name the way she used to when she was sixteen and thought I was embarrassing her.

"You need to stay out of this."

"I'm trying to understand—"

"There is nothing to understand.

It's a savings account.

Ethan opened it.

It's fine."

"Is your name on it?"

Another pause.

"Claire."

"It's in his name," she said.

"He said it was for tax reasons."

"What kind of tax reasons require a separate account that your wife isn't on?"

"Mom, please—"

"How much is in it?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know."

"He handles the finances.

He always has.

I don't ask questions about it because every time I do, we end up in a two-hour conversation about how I don't trust him and how he works himself half to de@th for our family and—" She stopped.

Breathed.

"I don't ask.

Okay?

I just don't ask."

I sat down at the kitchen table.

"Okay," I said.

"Okay, sweetheart."

"Please don't do anything with that number."

"I won't."

We talked for another few minutes about nothing — the weather, a show she'd been watching, whether Frank's knee was feeling better.

When we hung up, I held the phone in both hands and thought about what she'd said.

*He handles the finances.*