That night, I turned my laptop toward Troy as he watched the evening news. “Did you move money out of checking?” I asked. He didn’t take his eyes off the screen.
“I paid some bills.”
“How much?”
“A few thousand. It balances out.”
“Where did it go?” I asked, rotating the screen toward him. “This isn’t small.”
He rubbed his forehead. “House stuff. Utilities. I move money sometimes. It’ll come back.”
I knew then that pushing harder would only build silence between us. So I waited. A week later, the batteries in the remote died. I went to Troy’s desk to look for replacements. That’s when I found the receipts.
A tidy stack of hotel bills tucked beneath old envelopes. At first, I wasn’t alarmed. Troy traveled occasionally. Then I saw the location. Massachusetts. Every receipt was from the same hotel. The same room number. Month after month.
I sat on the edge of the bed until my hands went numb. There were eleven receipts. Eleven trips he never mentioned.
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