So I didn’t give him an argument.
I opened the account instead.
The first thing that bothered me was the authorized-user list.
His mother’s name was there.
So was his sister’s.
The account was mine.
Not ours in some vague marital sense. Mine in the practical sense that mattered when a balance came due and a creditor looked for the person responsible.
Neither woman had ever asked me for a card.
That was the first crack.
Then I opened the transaction history.
The charges stretched back through eleven months.
Hotel deposits appeared among restaurant bills and travel expenses. Other purchases filled the spaces between them. Nothing looked like one emergency or one misunderstanding that had gotten out of hand.
It looked routine.
That was worse.
A single unauthorized charge can be explained as a mistake. Eleven months of spending requires a system.
Someone had to request the cards.
