The Spare Phone Held Years Of Spare Love Chapter 03
Three days later, Ms. Parker sent the report to my email.
The moment I opened the attachment, my hand shook around the mouse.
The first entry: March, four years ago. Transfer of thirty-five thousand dollars. Note: renovation.
Ms. Parker had added a comment beside it: Recipient: Hayes, L. No renovation contractor license on file. Use of funds unclear.
The second entry: August, three years ago. Payment of seventy thousand dollars. Note: vehicle purchase.
Ms. Parker’s comment: Vehicle registered under Ms. Hayes’s name.
The third entry: November, two years ago. Card charge of eighteen thousand dollars in Vancouver.
Ms. Parker’s comment: No matching travel record under Mr. Bennett’s name during that period.
Then came the fourth entry, the fifth, the sixth.
Over five years, the total was two hundred ten thousand dollars. Of that, one hundred five thousand had come from our joint savings account.
The account was under my name.
I had set the password myself.
He had never told me he touched that money.
I pulled out the old account records. The last time I had checked them was a year ago, and the balance had not changed.
Had he quietly replaced the money every time he moved it out, or had he been keeping two sets of books from the very beginning?
I called the bank.
After five minutes of checking, the customer service representative said, “Mrs. Bennett, this account under your name has no large withdrawals in the past five years.”
“That’s impossible.”
“The system shows that every transfer was covered by a same-day cash deposit.”
I hung up.
He had a card I knew nothing about.
He used that card to move money out, then filled the joint account back in with cash, neat and almost surgical.
I went to his workplace, not to confront him, but to see Ms. Carter.
Ms. Carter was the deputy director of finance. She had sat at the main table at our wedding years ago, and she had worked under Ethan’s father for a long time.
I didn’t say much. I only told her I wanted to review Ethan’s payroll records.
She didn’t ask questions.
Half an hour later, she pushed a sheet of paper toward me.
[Ethan Bennett. Monthly salary, around forty-six hundred dollars after taxes. Annual performance bonus, ten to fifteen thousand dollars.
Total income over the past five years: approximately two hundred seventy-five thousand dollars.
Current account balance: sixty-eight hundred dollars.]
I looked at the paper for a long time.
“Where did the money go?”
Ms. Carter shook her head.
“That isn’t something I can ask.” She paused. “Ethan… I watched that boy grow up. His parents died early. Before his father passed, he asked me to look out for him. He said Ethan seemed cold, but he had a good heart. He said he wasn’t good with people, so I should help him when I could.”
She looked at me.
“Claire, did you find something?”
I folded the paper and put it into my pocket.
“Ms. Carter,” I said, “his father asked you to look after him. If my father were still alive, I don’t think he would want me to suffer in silence either.”
I didn’t wait for her answer.
I got up and left.
I was alone in the elevator.
The face reflected in the mirror was calm, as if nothing had happened. Only my fingers kept gripping that piece of paper, hard enough to leave my palm damp with sweat.
That night, Ethan came home early.
I was ladling soup in the kitchen when he leaned against the doorway.
“Ms. Parker said you two went to look at tile today?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you pick anything?”
“Still deciding.”
He walked over and took the bowl from my hand.
“I’m flying to San Diego tomorrow for work. Three days.”
“Okay.”
He paused.
“Claire, has something been bothering you lately?”
I looked up.
His brows drew together slightly. I knew that expression too well.
When his work was not going smoothly, when his students caused trouble, when his tenure review stressed him out, he always looked like that.
In the past, I would have asked what was wrong. I would have comforted him and tried everything I could to make him feel better.
Now I only gave him a faint smile.
“No. I’m just tired from the remodel.”
He nodded and didn’t ask again.
That night, he slept deeply.
I lay on my side, studying his outline in the faint glow of the streetlight slipping through the curtains.
His brows, his nose, his lips.
In eleven years, I had looked at that face countless times.
The first time was during freshman orientation. He stood in the front row, sweat sliding down from his temple, but he didn’t wipe it away. His jaw was tense, stubborn and unyielding.
Back then, I thought he was interesting.
Later, when he pursued me, he stuttered three times on the day he confessed his feelings.
My roommate said a block of wood like Ethan had probably used up every ounce of courage he had. I should stop making it hard for him.
So I nodded and said yes.
Then he pulled me into his arms, our hearts pressed together, both of them beating hard and fast.
The sycamore leaves fell and grew back, grew back and fell again.
Eleven times.
I drew my hand back from the side of his face.
Then I turned over, closed my eyes, and felt a small damp patch spread across my pillow.
I didn’t know what time I finally fell asleep.
