She was quiet for a moment; then I heard her exhale slowly.
“It’s not work stress.”
“Claire is going to hate me if I tell you.”
My grip on the workbench tightened until my knuckles turned white.
“Tell me anyway.”
“Okay. I’ll tell you, but swear you won’t tell anyone. Not the neighbors, not your brother, nobody.”
“I swear. Megan, please. What happened?”
There was another pause, and when she spoke, her voice was careful, as if she were walking on a tightrope.
“Tell me anyway.”
“Okay. So. You clearly have no idea what happened on that trip. Claire is involved in something. Please, just listen and don’t interrupt.”
“I’m listening.”
“Rachel’s in trouble. Financial trouble. Big trouble. Her husband doesn’t know. She came to the spa a wreck, and she asked Claire for help. And you know how your wife is with our baby sister; she couldn’t say no.” Megan’s words were coming faster now. “Claire gave her money. A lot of money. From the kids’ college account.”
My stomach turned and tightened.
“Rachel’s in trouble.”
I closed my eyes.
“How much?”
“I don’t know the exact number.”
“Megan. How much?”
“Most of it. Paul, I’m so sorry. She’s been sick about it since the second she wired it. That’s why she can’t look at you. That’s why she can’t sit with the kids. She’s ashamed.”
My blood ran cold. I sank onto the garage steps. The concrete was cold through my jeans.
“She’s been sick about it.”
Eight days of imagining every worst thing a man imagines when his wife locks the door, and it was money. It was Rachel. It was a bad decision made out of love for a sister.
I could work with that; money you could rebuild. Trust you could rebuild. I could breathe again.
“Thank you,” I said. “For telling me.”
“Don’t tell her I told you.”
“I won’t.”
It was a bad decision.
I hung up, sat there in the dark garage, and told myself the worst was over.
I had no idea I’d just been handed the wrong story.
I could hear the fridge humming inside the house.
Almost all of it. That’s what Megan had said.
I had no idea I’d just been handed the wrong story.
I closed my eyes.
I could see Claire on the couch, her phone tilted away from me, that tight little smile she’d been giving me for eight days. I could see her locking the guest room door last night without looking at me.
