Chapter 8 - Thirty-Seven Thousand Was Only the BeginningAndrew had found charges I expected.
Credit cards.
Medical payments.
Salon suppliers.
Legal consultations.
Then came charges that had nothing to do with Sandra.
Hotels.
Designer stores.
Jewelry.
A wellness resort.
Furniture.
Online advertising.
A company called RB Media LLC.
“How much?” I asked.
“At least thirty-seven thousand in personal spending.”
Rebecca appeared in the doorway behind him.
“You had no right to go through that.”
Andrew looked at her.
“It’s our account.”
“You’re twisting things.”
He turned the screen.
“Six thousand eight hundred dollars at a jewelry store.”
“It was an anniversary purchase.”
“Our anniversary was four months later.”
She looked at me.
“This has nothing to do with your house.”
“It does if you used Sandra’s crisis to justify taking money from me.”
Andrew scrolled farther.
Then stopped.
“What is RB Media?”
Rebecca’s face changed.
That was enough.
He clicked.
More than fifty thousand dollars had moved into the account over fourteen months.
Andrew stared.
“What is this?”
Rebecca sat down.
For the first time since everything began, she looked tired rather than angry.
“It was a business.”
“What business?”
“Beauty products. Online.”
“You had a company?”
“I was trying to create something of my own.”
“With what money?”
“Some of mine.”
“And the rest?”
She did not answer.
Andrew whispered, “The loan?”
Rebecca’s eyes filled.
Sandra’s salon loan had not been created for Rebecca’s company.
But after funds and family accounts became mixed, money had moved.
Some directly.
Some through credit cards.
Some through personal transfers.
The exact accounting would take weeks.
But one thing became clear immediately.
Sandra’s financial disaster was real.
Rebecca had also been using it as a curtain.
She was hiding her own failure behind her mother’s salon.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Andrew asked.
“Because you had already lost your job.”
“So?”
“I couldn’t tell you I had lost money too.”
“You didn’t lose money. You hid debt.”
“I was trying to fix it.”
I almost heard Andrew’s earlier words.
I thought I could fix everything before you knew.
They had built a marriage around parallel secrecy.
Rebecca looked at me.
“If you had just helped us, none of this needed to come out.”
There are sentences that reveal people more clearly than confessions.
That was one.
I stood.
“No.”
She blinked.
“If I had helped you, you would have learned that lying worked.”
Rebecca’s face hardened again.
The next morning Sandra arrived at my house carrying a thick folder.
She looked exhausted.
And before Rebecca could stop her, Sandra said:
“Elaine, I owe you an apology.”
Rebecca stood abruptly.
“Mom, go home.”
Sandra ignored her.
“I never asked my daughter to sell your house.”
The room went silent.
May you like
Then Sandra placed her folder on my table.
“And I think Rebecca has been lying to me too.”
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