Chapter 3
The house is quiet. I lie still and listen. No TV. No boots on the hardwood. No truck in the driveway — I'd have heard it start if he left.
I check the bedroom door. Still locked. Good.
Bathroom. Shower this time — I skipped it coming home.
The water is too hot and I let it stay too hot because the sting is something to count.
Seventeen seconds before I adjust the handle.
I stand under it for six minutes. Wash my hair.
Condition. Shave my legs even though nobody's going to see them and I don't know why I bother except that routine is the only thing that feels normal right now.
I dress in real clothes — jeans, a sweater, anything that isn't scrubs.
Tonight is my night off — I work three twelve-hour shifts a week, Tuesday Wednesday Thursday, and today is Thursday but I swapped with Amy because she needed Tuesday for her daughter's recital.
So tonight I'm off. Tonight I exist in the daylight world.
I unlock the bedroom door.
Marco is at the kitchen table. In front of him: a legal pad. Yellow. He's written on it. Good.
He looks up when I come in. His eyes are red-rimmed but dry. He's been sitting here for hours.
"I wrote it all down," he says. He pushes the pad across the table.
I sit. I read.
His handwriting is blocky, all-caps — contractor's hand. Every line is a date and an amount. Some I already knew from the bank statements. Some are new.
February 14: $200 cash (she asked for groceries)
February 22: $400 cash (said electric was going to be shut off)
March 1: co-signed lease (apartment on Miller Street, $1,400/month)
March 4: opened line of credit ($23,000 — "in case she needed more, I didn't want to keep taking from savings")
March 8: $500 cash (first month's utilities — paid in person at her landlord's office)
March 15: $300 cash (interview outfit)
March 22: $200 cash (gas and parking — she said she was interviewing in Hartford)
April 2: $800 cash (said her car insurance lapsed)
April 14: "went to her apartment. Stayed."
April 18: $1,200 cash (said she was behind on the new lease)
May 3: $500 Zelle
May 11: $200 Zelle (she asked for a prescription — said she lost her insurance)
May 19: $1,200 Zelle
May 28: $3,000 Zelle (she said landlord was threatening eviction)
June 2: $2,500 Zelle
June 9: $8,000 Zelle (said she owed back rent for 3 months plus late fees)
I add it up in my head as I read. The Zelle transfers match my records — everything since May.
But the earlier payments were all cash. That's why I never saw them in the transaction history.
He pulled cash from ATMs and handed it to her in person.
February through April: $3,600 in cash I never caught because I was only checking the balance, not the withdrawals.
Total on his list: $19,100 in transfers and cash, plus the $23,000 credit line that funded the larger payments.
"The credit line," I say. "Where did the money GO? You opened $23,000 but you only sent $15,400 in Zelle."
He hesitates.
"Marco."
"I gave her some in cash. And I—" He swallows. "I paid her lease directly. Two months. $2,800 to the landlord."
$15,400 Zelle + $3,600 early cash + $2,800 direct to landlord = $21,800 in actual outflows.
"That leaves $1,200 unaccounted from the credit line."
"Hardware store. I bought her a washing machine and a dryer. Delivered."
A washing machine and dryer. For her apartment. With our money. The apartment we're paying for, furnished with appliances we bought, while we rent a two-bedroom with a laundromat in the basement.
I put the legal pad down. Fold my hands on the table.
"You co-signed her lease."
"Yes."
"Which means if she stops paying—"
"I'm on the hook. I know."
"How much is left on the lease?"
"Seven months."
Seven months at $1,400. Another $9,800 he could owe if she defaults.
On top of the $23,000 credit line. I close my eyes and do the math.
Worst case: $32,800 in debt. We started this year with $32,000 in savings.
The numbers are almost identical. It's like he took everything we built and handed it across a table.
"Brooke hasn't worked since February," I say.
"Four months. You've been paying her rent, her bills, her car insurance.
You bought her appliances. You co-signed her lease.
You had sex with her." I open my eyes. "This isn't helping a friend, Marco.
This is a relationship. A financial one and a physical one. "
"It was ONE time—"
"The money is every time. Every transfer is a time. Every $500 is a conversation you had with her that you didn't have with me. You and Brooke have a financial relationship that's been running longer than some marriages."
He puts his head in his hands. The same gesture as yesterday. But I'm not tired today. I'm awake. I'm off shift. My brain is operating at full capacity for the first time since I found the number.
"I want to know about nursing school," I say.
He looks up. Confused.
"Brooke and I were in nursing school together. She's a registered nurse. She has the same license I do — RN, BSN. She could work at any hospital in Connecticut. Why hasn't she gotten a job in four months?"
"She said the market is—"
"There are seven hundred open nursing positions within thirty miles of here. I know because they send me recruitment emails every week. The market is desperate. A nurse with her license could be working in seventy-two hours."
He says nothing.
"She's not looking," I say. "She doesn't need to look. She has you."
I stand up. I take the legal pad. I photograph every page with my phone — four photos. I put the pad back on the table.
"I'm going out," I say.
"Where?"
"I'm going to Brooke's apartment."
"Nina—"
"You're not invited to have an opinion about what I do next."
I take my keys. My phone. My bag. I walk to the car. It's 5:45 PM. The sun is still up. This is the hour I'm usually pulling into the hospital parking lot, fourteen streetlights into my commute, counting the minutes until 7 PM when my shift starts and the world makes sense.
Tonight I drive to Miller Street instead.
Brooke's apartment complex is nicer than ours. Newer construction, balconies with wrought-iron railings, a little courtyard with landscaping. Unit 4B. Second floor. I've been here before — dropped off soup when she had a cold in March, sat on her couch last week.
The couch I'm now paying for.
I sit in the parking lot and count the windows. Twelve units visible from where I'm parked. Brooke's light is on — the one with the succulent on the windowsill that I gave her for her birthday last year.
I'm not going up tonight. I don't have the words yet. I have numbers — I always have numbers — but I don't have the sentences. The confrontation will come. It needs to be precise.
Tonight I just look.
A car pulls into the lot at 6:12 PM. A man gets out. Tall, dark jacket, carries a paper bag — takeout. He walks to the building. Goes inside. Two minutes later, Brooke's light shifts — movement behind the curtain.
Not Marco's car. Not Marco's build. Someone else.
I think about this for a long time.
If Brooke has another man bringing her food at 6 PM on a Thursday — then what is Marco to her? Not a boyfriend. Not a lover she's building something with. A source. A wallet. The man who says yes.
He didn't steal our money. He gave it away. And somehow that's worse. Because at least a thief knows what they're taking. Marco thought he was being good.
I drive home at 6:40. Marco is still at the kitchen table. He's made dinner — pasta, garlic bread. Two plates. Like we're still people who eat together.
"I'm not hungry," I say. I go to the bedroom. Lock the door.
I open my phone and search: "divorce lawyer Connecticut free consultation."
Three results. I bookmark all of them.
Then I open my banking app one more time. $24,418. $1,890. Negative $23,000.
I close my eyes and count tiles. Twelve to the bathroom. Eight to the back door. Forty-three steps from the ER exit to my car. Some numbers don't change. I hold onto those.