Assault.
Claire drove us back to the hotel.
By then Brandon’s messages were arriving.
“When you get over your anger, come home.”
Twenty-three minutes later:
“I can apologize, but your mother isn’t exactly innocent.”
Then:
“You’re blowing this up way beyond what happened.”
Then:
“Go ahead with your little drama. Let’s see who regrets it.”
Claire photographed every message.
“Don’t reply,” she said.
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Good.”
She studied me.
“What accounts does he have access to?”
“Our joint checking. Savings. Investment account. Household credit card.”
“How much?”
I exhaled.
“Maybe one seventy-five in cash savings. More in retirement, but those are separate.”
Claire’s pen stopped.
“One hundred seventy-five thousand?”
“We were saving for a house.”
“And how much of that did you contribute?”
“Most.”
“How much is most?”
I thought.
“Probably seventy percent.”
Claire stared at me for a long moment.
“Hannah, first thing tomorrow, you check every account.”
That night I barely slept.
Mom did.
Or pretended to.
At 3:14 a.m., I stared at the ceiling and remembered something Dad once told me.
He had been fixing a loose cabinet hinge in my first apartment.
Brandon and I had been engaged then.
Dad had asked whether we planned to combine finances.
“Probably,” I said.
Dad tightened the screw.
“Share your life. Don’t surrender your eyesight.”
I laughed at the time.
“What does that mean?”
“It means love somebody completely. But always know what your own name is attached to.”
I hadn’t thought about those words in years.
At 8:17 the next morning, Claire called.
“Open your banking app.”
I was already awake.
Mom was in the shower.
I logged in.
For a second, I thought the page hadn’t loaded correctly.
Joint savings: $1,318.42.
