“So do I.”
I left the hotel.
When I reached home, every light downstairs was on.
Nathan was sitting at the kitchen table.
Margaret was beside him.
Neither spoke when I entered.
I placed the envelopes on the table.
Nathan looked at them.
His face changed instantly.
“What are those?”
“You tell me.”
He picked up the first envelope.
Then the second.
Then stopped when he saw mine.
His face went pale.
“Sofia…”
“Did you apply for a debt-consolidation loan?”
He said nothing.
“Using my information?”
“I didn’t.”
I pushed the letter toward him.
“Then explain this.”
He stared at it.
Margaret leaned forward.
“What is it?”
Nathan looked at her.
“Nothing.”
I laughed.
“That’s what you said about everything.”
He lowered his head.
I sat across from him.
“This is your last chance.”
He looked at me.
“Did you use my information?”
His eyes filled with tears.
“I started the application.”
The room went silent.
“You started it?”
“Yes.”
“Without telling me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To consolidate the debt.”
“With my income.”
“Yes.”
“With my employment information.”
“Yes.”
“And you expected the loan to pay off your old debts.”
“Yes.”
I stared at him.
“How much were you trying to borrow?”
He swallowed.
“Forty thousand.”
My hands tightened around the edge of the table.
“You were trying to borrow another forty thousand dollars?”
“I thought I could make the payments.”
“With what?”
He looked at me.
“Your income.”
That answer destroyed the last bit of sympathy I had left.
Because now I finally understood.
Nathan didn’t see my paycheck as something I earned.
He saw it as something available to him.
And that was the moment I stopped thinking about how to save our marriage.
I started thinking about how to protect myself.
See more on the next page
THE PLAN
I asked Nathan to give me every financial document he had.
Every credit-card statement.
Every loan agreement.
Every collection letter.
Every account.
Every payment record.
Everything.
He resisted at first.
Then I said:
“If you don’t give them to me voluntarily, I’ll find another way to get the information I need.”
He looked at me.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m done asking.”
That finally changed something in him.
He went upstairs.
When he returned, he carried a folder.
Then another.
Then another.
He placed them on the table.
I opened the first one.
Credit card.
Balance: $18,400.
Second.
$14,700.
Third.
$11,900.
Fourth.
$6,800.
I added them.
$51,800.
Then the personal loans.
$18,600.
$12,400.
That brought the total to:
$82,800.
Then came the money he owed his mother.
