So I smiled.
Not because I agreed.
Because something inside me had finally stopped reaching.
I walked to my car without demanding an apology.
Once inside, I closed the door and sat with my hands resting in my lap.
Then I reached for my phone.
For once, I wasn’t making a call to solve another problem for Michael.
I made one phone call.
“First Community Credit Union,” the woman answered. “This is Denise.”
I looked through the windshield at Michael and Jennifer’s house.
Three stories of pale stone, black shutters, a double garage, and a wide front porch Jennifer had once called “the beginning of everything.”
I had given them forty-eight thousand dollars toward the down payment.
Then, when Michael’s new business struggled during its second year, I began sending them twenty-six hundred dollars each month.
At first it was supposed to be temporary.
Six months.
Then nine.
Then, somehow, three years.
“Hello?” Denise said.
“I’m sorry. My name is Barbara Cole.”
“Of course, Ms. Cole. What can I help you with?”
I swallowed.
“I need to stop an automatic transfer.”
A small pause.
“Certainly. Which transfer?”
“The recurring transfer to Michael Cole. It goes out on the twenty-third of every month.”
I knew the date because I had organized my entire budget around it.
My pension deposit arrived first.
Then the transfer.
Then utilities.
Insurance.
Groceries.
Everything left over was mine.
Most months, “mine” was a very small number.
Denise asked the security questions.
I answered.
Then she said, “I see the recurring transfer. Two thousand six hundred dollars.”
“Yes.”
“You’d like to cancel future transfers?”
My heart began pounding.
It was ridiculous.
