Chapter 3: What the Paper Said
Dad held the phone up so the screen faced her.
"Is this him?"
Melissa crossed her arms.
"You're overreacting."
"I asked you a question."
"He's a friend.
That's all."
"A friend." Dad set the phone face-down on the dresser, next to the crumpled paper.
"You want to try that again?"
"I don't owe you an explanation for every person in my contacts."
"No," Dad said.
"But you owe me an explanation for the joint account you've been draining for the past eight months."
The room went completely still.
That was what the paper was.
I understood it now.
I'd seen the logo at the top — a bank statement.
I hadn't read the numbers, but from the way Melissa's face had collapsed when she opened the lid, the numbers were not small.
"That's our household account," Melissa said.
"I manage the household."
"You withdrew four thousand dollars in March.
Thirty-five hundred in April.
Six thousand in June." Dad's voice didn't rise.
It stayed flat and even, which was somehow worse than shouting.
"That's not managing the household, Melissa.
That's emptying it."
"Prices go up.
Everything costs more now.
You wouldn't know because you're never home."
"I'm never home because I'm working.
To pay for the house you live in.
The car you drive.
The account you've been clearing out."
Grandma touched my arm.
Quietly, without a word, she guided me toward the door.
I didn't want to leave.
But I let her move me into the hallway, and she pulled the door almost closed behind us — not all the way.
Just enough.
We stood there together, listening.
"You want to talk about Michael?" Dad said.
"Fine.
Let's talk about Michael.
Because I didn't just find his name on your phone today."
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about the receipt I found in your coat pocket two months ago.
The restaurant on Fifth.
The one neither of us has ever been to together."
Melissa said nothing.
"I didn't say anything then.
I told myself I was wrong.
I told myself there was an explanation." A pause.
"I gave you eight months of explanations, Melissa."
"You've been spying on me."
"I've been watching my marriage fall apart and trying to figure out why."
Grandma's hand tightened on my arm.
I looked at her face.
She wasn't looking at the door.
She was looking at the floor, and her expression was something I didn't have a word for yet — not quite sadness, not quite recognition.
Something older than both.
"You should have just asked me," Melissa said.
"I'm asking you now."
Another long silence.
Then Melissa's voice shifted.
The edge came out of it.
Something smoother moved in underneath.
"Okay.
You want the truth?
The truth is that this house is suffocating.
You work constantly.
Your mother is always here.
And your son —" she stopped.
"Say it," Dad said quietly.
"Finish that sentence."
She didn't.
"Say what you were going to say about my son."
The door was almost closed.
May you like
But not quite.
I heard every word.
