He said he had handled the payments.
I finally spoke. “No. He handled the spending.”
My husband’s head snapped toward me.
I didn’t raise my voice.
I didn’t need to.
The numbers had already done that for me.
“Before this trip,” I said, “the charges connected to the extra cards totaled $18,731.”
His sister looked up.
His mother’s face changed more slowly.
She seemed to be going backward through months in her head—restaurants, travel charges, purchases, all the times she had pulled that card from her wallet believing her son was paying for whatever she was buying.
“How much?” she asked.
“Eighteen thousand, seven hundred thirty-one dollars.”
I kept the card flat against my palm.
“That doesn’t include whatever they were trying to put through at the hotel today.”
My husband stepped in immediately. “Most of that was supposed to be paid back.”
There was that phrase again.
