Nick kept his eyes on his phone.
His parents were still standing in the bedroom, and I was beside the bed with Tara's apology folded inside an envelope.
Nobody moved.
"Open the account," I said.
He swallowed.
"It's open."
"Then let me see it."
He turned the screen slightly toward me.
I could see the name of the credit card company and a balance that made me stop breathing for a moment.
It wasn't a small amount.
I looked at the number again, hoping I had read it incorrectly.
I hadn't.
"How long has this been going on?"
Nick rubbed his forehead.
"Since the spring."
The spring.
I thought about all the months between then and October.
The months when I had been buying maternity clothes one or two pieces at a time.
The months when we had discussed our budget and talked about how much we needed to save before Nora arrived.
The months when I had believed we were making decisions together.
"You had this card the whole time?"
He nodded.
I looked at the balance again.
"How did it get this high?"
He didn't answer immediately.
Frank stepped closer to the doorway but said nothing.
Elaine stood beside him, her arms folded loosely across her chest.
Nick finally put the phone down on the dresser.
"I made some bad decisions."
I waited for him to explain.
He told me he had been making financial wagers since the spring.
At first, he said, he had thought he could make some extra money.
He had convinced himself that a few successful bets would help us get ahead.
Then things hadn't gone the way he expected.
He had lost money.
He had tried again.
And the losses had grown.
I listened without interrupting.
I had heard people describe the way they got caught in a bad financial decision.
They always seemed to begin with a reason that sounded manageable.
One mistake.
One attempt to recover.
One more chance to make things right.
I had never imagined hearing those words from my husband while I stood in our bedroom looking at the clothes his mother had bought because he had given mine away.
"How much have you lost?" I asked.
He looked down.
"I don't know the exact total."
"How can you not know?"
"I haven't added everything up."
I felt a sharp pressure in my chest.
I had spent months keeping track of grocery receipts and baby expenses.
I had planned my maternity leave around the money we knew we would have.
Meanwhile, Nick had been making wagers with money he couldn't afford to lose and keeping the results to himself.
I asked whether he had used our checking account.
He nodded.
My hands went cold.
"How much?"
"I don't know."
"You keep saying that."
"I said I don't know exactly."
I looked at him.
"Then you need to find out."
He sat down on the edge of the bed.
The mattress dipped beneath his weight, and the sage green dress moved slightly on its hanger.
I noticed that movement for no good reason.
Maybe because I had spent so much time staring at that dress during the past two days.
It had become a reminder of how little I had understood about my own home.
Nick rubbed his palms against his knees.
"I thought I could replace the money before you noticed."
That was the first thing he said that made the situation completely clear to me.
He had known there was something to notice.
He had known the money was missing.
He had known I was planning for our daughter.
And instead of telling me what had happened, he had tried to cover it up.
I sat down in the chair beside the dresser.
"Is that why you gave Tara my clothes?"
He nodded again.
I wanted him to look at me.
He didn't.
"You knew I needed those clothes."
"I know."
"You knew I paid for them."
"Yes."
"And you still gave them away."
He pressed his hands together.
"I needed the money for the payment."
I stared at him.
Three hundred and ten dollars.
That was what Tara had made from selling five of my things.
Nick had wanted half of it to meet a payment deadline.
He had been willing to let my belongings disappear because he was afraid of what would happen if he didn't pay.
I couldn't stop thinking about the order of events.
He had taken the clothes first.
He had told Tara I wanted to get rid of them.
He had encouraged her to sell the expensive items.
Then he had asked her for money.
It wasn't one careless decision.
It was a series of decisions, each one giving him another chance to tell the truth.
He had chosen not to.
Elaine finally spoke.
"Nick, you need to understand what you've done."
He looked up at her.
"I understand."
"No. You understand that we've found out."
He lowered his eyes again.
I looked at Elaine.
I was grateful she was there, but I didn't want her to have to defend me against her own son.
This was something Nick and I needed to face.
I also knew I couldn't do it by pretending his behavior had been harmless.
"Did you use the money from our checking account to make these wagers?" I asked.
He nodded.
"Some of it."
"How much is some?"
He shook his head.
"I have to go through it."
I felt anger rise in me, but underneath it was something heavier.
Fear.
We were expecting a baby.
My income would change when I went on leave.
Our expenses would increase.
I didn't know how much money was left in our account, how much Nick owed, or whether there were other obligations he hadn't told me about.
I had spent five months trying to prepare for a future I thought we were building together.
Now I didn't know what we had.
Frank spoke for the first time.
"You need to get every account in order and be honest about the numbers."
Nick nodded.
I couldn't tell whether he was listening or simply waiting for everyone to stop talking.
I stood and picked up the envelope containing the returned money.
The cash inside belonged to me because it had come from the sale of my belongings.
It wasn't enough to solve the financial problem Nick had created.
But I wasn't going to let it disappear into that problem, too.
I put the envelope in my dresser drawer.
Then I returned to the bedroom doorway.
"How much money is left in our checking account?"
Nick looked at his phone.
"I'll check."
"Now, please."
He opened the account.
His thumb moved across the screen while I stood beside him.
I watched the available balance appear.
I wasn't going to pretend I understood the full picture from one number.
But I could see enough to know that our finances were not what I had believed.
I asked him to show me the recent transactions.
He did.
We began looking through them together.
There were entries I recognized.
Household bills.
Ordinary purchases.
Expenses we had discussed.
There were others I didn't understand.
I asked about each unfamiliar transaction.
Some he explained.
Others he said he needed to check.
I didn't try to solve everything that afternoon.
I knew I needed complete information, not a rushed explanation designed to make the conversation end.
After a while, I put the phone down.
"I need you to understand something."
Nick looked at me.
"I can't plan for Nora if I don't know what we're dealing with."
He nodded.
"I know."
"No more surprises."
"I understand."
I wanted to believe him.
That was the difficult part.
Even after everything he had admitted, I still wanted the man I thought I had married to be standing in front of me.
But wanting that didn't make it true.
Elaine came over and touched my shoulder.
Frank gathered the empty shopping bags and placed them near the bedroom door.
Their presence had helped me get through the afternoon.
Still, I knew they couldn't remain in our house and manage our marriage for us.
Before they left, Elaine told me to call her if I needed anything.
I thanked her.
Nick walked them to the door.
I stayed in the bedroom and looked at the clothes on the bed.
The new scrubs were folded neatly.
The returned clothes were back in my possession.
The green dress hung where it belonged.
Everything that could be replaced or recovered had been handled.
The missing trust was different.
I couldn't put it on a hanger.
I couldn't count it.
And I couldn't simply decide that it had been returned because Nick had finally shown me his banking application.
That evening, I placed the receipt envelope back in my desk drawer.
Then I sat down with a notebook and wrote three things on the first page.
The credit card.
The checking account.
The total amount lost.
I didn't know the answers yet.
But I was going to get them.
Click here to continue reading: PART 6: I Had Been Preparing for Our Daughter’s Arrival While Nick Was Trying to Win Back Money He Had Already Lost
I Came Home From a Hospital Shift Expecting to Rest, but the Empty Closet Made Me Question My Own Marriage
Part 5 of 12
