Chapter 1

The twelfth day after my wife lost her job, she asked to borrow the car for an interview.

I didn't hand over the keys right away. I opened the calculator instead.

"Sure. But it's forty cents a mile, gas and parking on top of that, and a three-hundred deposit. When you bring it back I'll check the odometer and settle up either way."

Daphne Henson stood in the entryway, still holding the folder with her resume in it.

She stared at me for a few seconds.

"From here to the Portside Industrial Park and back is over fifty miles."

"That's exactly why we settle it clean."

I pushed my payment code across to her and kept my voice as even as I could.

"You've got no income right now, so you should be even more cost-aware. A car doesn't run on water. Gas, insurance, maintenance, depreciation, which one of those is free?"

Daphne glanced down at her phone.

"You sure you want to do this with me?"

I was starting to lose patience.

"Even brothers keep clean accounts. Besides, I'm only charging you, I'm not saying you can't use it. You can't just assume that because we're married, everything of mine comes to you for free."

The words were barely out when my phone chimed.

Daphne had sent sixty dollars.

The memo was one word: rental.

She took the keys off the shoe cabinet, and the little blue whale on the keyring swung once.

That thing was old already. She'd pried it off her old white car. When she traded it in she couldn't bear to throw the whale away, so she hung it on this car instead.

I'd thought it was childish back then, wanted to swap it for the metal fob the company gave me, but she dug in for once and said she wanted to keep it as a keepsake.

After the door shut, I sent her a message.

【Take a photo of the dash before you go, so there's no argument later.】

A few seconds later she sent the photo.

Thirty thousand three hundred and eighty-eight miles.

I saved it to my album, satisfied.

This wasn't me making things hard for her on purpose.

Seven years of marriage, and the money had always been Daphne's to manage. Back when I bought a pair of sneakers, she'd ask if I really had to have them. When I went over budget treating coworkers to dinner, she'd have me log it in her spreadsheet.

She used to say you can't run a household half-blind, that every dollar out the door had to have a name on it.

Now it was her turn without a job, and I was only running the rules she'd taught me.

That's called fair.

And it wasn't a rule I'd invented out of thin air, either.

Three years ago, Cole Swanson had driven this car back too.

That day Daphne planted herself in the doorway with a receipt for eleven hundred dollars and made him pay every cent of it.

Cole begged her to cut him some slack. All she said was, "Even brothers keep clean accounts. Being family doesn't mean we get to break the rules."

I'd remembered that line ever since.

So when Daphne asked if I really meant to charge her, there was even a small, quiet satisfaction in it I couldn't quite name.

I was only handing her back the rules she'd made.

I wasn't always like this, honestly.

The first couple of years after we married, Daphne worked late into the night all the time. I'd rather drive halfway across the city to pick her up, and it never once crossed my mind how much the extra miles cost.

I told myself dating and married life weren't the same thing.

People have to learn to be practical eventually.

At six thirty in the evening, the car was back downstairs.

When Daphne came in, dried mud flecked the cuffs of her pants and half her hair was soaked from the rain.

She set the parking ticket, the gas receipt, and the keys down together on the coffee table, then sent me the dashboard photo.

Thirty thousand four hundred and forty miles.

I ran the numbers again.

"Fifty-two miles, thirty-two dollars and eight cents. You put a hundred in gas and there's still most of a tank left, so we'll call the gas even. Parking is a personal cost from your interview, so it can't come out of the deposit."

She was drying her hair with a towel. When I finished she asked only one thing. "So the deposit leaves twenty-seven eighty, right?"

"Right."

I transferred the money to her.

She took it.

I thought that was the end of it, and asked in passing how the interview went.

"Fine."

"And the pay?"

"Six hundred a month less than before."

I frowned.

"Then what's the point? You were an operations supervisor, and now you're going to be a warehouse coordinator, all the way out there. If you ask me, you're just in too much of a hurry. It's been a few days. Would it kill you to be a little pickier?"

Daphne looked at me, and suddenly she gave a small laugh.

"I'd like to be pickier too."

She didn't go on. She took the towel and went into the bathroom.

Right then my brother Cole called.

"Hey, lend me the car this weekend, two days. First time meeting Yara's parents, and rolling up in that beat-up used car is too embarrassing."

I said yes without a second thought.

"Sure, come get it Friday night."

Cole let out a couple of low laughs.

"Nothing beats a real brother. Don't worry, I'll fill the tank for you."

"We're family, what are you talking about."

The call ended, and when I looked up I found the bathroom door had opened at some point.

Daphne stood in the doorway, water still dripping from her wet hair.

She asked me, "Your brother's borrowing it two days. How many miles is he planning to drive?"