Chapter 6 - The Attic Became My Room After I Tried to Go Home
At twenty-four weeks, I told Ryan:
“I’m going back to the townhouse.”
The air conditioning had been fixed weeks earlier.
He hesitated.
“Why?”
“Because I want my house.”
“Mom is helping.”
“I don’t want this much help.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means your mother counts crackers.”
He laughed.
I did not.
Then Judith entered.
Ryan had apparently already told:
her.
“You want to leave?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I’m ready.”
She folded her arms.
“You lost two pounds last week.”
“My doctor is monitoring it.”
“Your doctor sees you twenty minutes at a time.”
I stared.
“So?”
“I see what you actually do.”
There.
Authority.
I packed that afternoon.
Then Ryan told me something that stopped me.
His contracting business had:
cash-flow problems.
A commercial remodel went bad.
A client withheld:
$41,000.
He owed:
subcontractors,
materials,
taxes.
“How bad?”
He said:
“Temporary.”
“How much?”
“Maybe sixty.”
Sixty thousand.
My heart pounded.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You were sick.”
Again.
Protection through:
silence.
Then:
“If we move home now, I’m covering the mortgage, utilities, the HVAC financing, everything.”
“Our money covers those things.”
He looked away.
“Our joint checking is low.”
“How low?”
Less than:
$3,000.
I felt sick.
I said:
“We need statements.”
He became defensive.
“You think I stole from you?”
“No.”
“I think I don’t know what’s happening.”
Ryan said:
“Stay at Mom’s one more month.”
“Let me stabilize work.”
“Then we go home.”
I agreed.
Why?
Money.
Pregnancy.
Exhaustion.
And the fear that leaving my marriage in the third trimester would turn every practical problem into:
ten problems.
May you like
That choice mattered later.
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