Chapter 1

Delilah Delgado had made a rule. Every household charge that pushed past our three-thousand-a-month cap needed a filled-out Family Fund Expenditure Application.

Fill it out wrong, and it got sent back.

Fill it out right, and the money came through with an electronic IOU attached.

She said we were spending shared assets, and having it in black and white kept the feelings out of it.

Two years in, I had forty-three thousand dollars in IOUs to my name.

Twelve thousand of that was from the time my appendix went acute and I passed out from the pain before I could follow the process, so I swiped her card first for the tests and the surgery.

That IOU carried a note: unauthorized use, interest raised by twenty percent.

Then one day, using Delilah's computer in the study to look something up, I clicked into a folder by accident.

Inside was a screenshot of an order.

A premium annual membership at a private hospital. Yearly fee, one hundred and eighty-two thousand dollars.

One-on-one nutrition meals, priority booking with specialists, a fully customized recovery program.

Member: Alden Fox.

I knew that name better than anyone.

He was the secretary who had been with Delilah for five years.

I stared at the screen for a long time, then closed the folder and downloaded a fresh form.

Only this time, it wasn't a Family Fund Expenditure Application I was filling out.

It was a divorce petition.

……

The printer pushed out the last page just as Delilah opened the door and walked in.

She glanced at the title on the paper and reached over to stop the machine.

“A divorce petition?”

I pulled the pages free and slid only the order screenshot in front of her.

“A premium hospital membership. A hundred and eighty-two thousand a year. Member, Alden Fox. When did you set this up for him?”

Delilah's smile froze.

“Alden's health isn't good, and he's got no one at home. He's been with me for five years. I covered a health management fee for him. Is there a problem with that?”

I looked up at her.

“And when I had my appendix surgery?”

The smile thinned a little.

“Why are you bringing that up again?”

“Because that twelve thousand is still accruing interest at twenty-four percent a year.”

“It's a different situation.”

Delilah took the petition out of my hand and turned through a couple of pages, unhurried.

“You didn't apply. You went straight to my card, so of course it counts as an unauthorized expense. Alden's money had a purpose, it had an assessment. I knew in advance, and I approved it.”

“So the difference isn't where the money went.”

I looked at her.

“It's who it went to.”

Her fingertips stopped.

A moment later, she tossed the petition back onto the desk.

“Jacob Harding, you've been carrying too much emotion lately.”

“Setting a cap on the household account was something we agreed on before we got married. You were the one who said black and white was the fairest way.”

Of course I remembered.

Right after we married, she told me her father had been dragged under once by relatives borrowing money, so she had no sense of security.

I felt for her, and I handed over the account to her myself.

She said three months would be enough.

Then three months turned into two years.

I had to fill out a purpose to buy daily necessities, upload a receipt to get medicine for my mother, and even my appendix surgery became a debt I owed her.

I took the petition back.

“I regret it now.”

Delilah clamped down on my wrist.

“Don't use divorce to test me.”

Her grip wasn't light, just enough that I couldn't pull free.

“All you want is for me to cancel those forty-three thousand in IOUs and raise your limit. We can talk about it, but not like this.”

She'd decided I was only throwing a tantrum, certain I couldn't bear to leave.

Watching her stand there so sure of herself, I meant to argue back, but what came out instead was:

“Tomorrow is my mom's sixtieth birthday. Are you still going?”

Delilah let go of my wrist and straightened her cuff.

“I promised her. Of course I'm going.”

The wire pulled tight inside me actually loosened a little.

It was the first time she'd offered on her own to come to my mother's birthday.

Maybe she still remembered.

Maybe there really was another reason behind that membership card.

Delilah picked up her phone and turned to leave.

“Drop the petition. Don't let your mother see it. She's old, she can't take the stress.”

She had just reached the door when her phone rang.

Alden's voice leaked out of the receiver.

“Ms. Delgado, the hospital needs me to add an emergency contact. Who should I put down?”

Delilah didn't hesitate.

“Put me.”

“And the relationship field?”

She paused, then pushed the door open.

“Family.”

The door closed in front of me.

By the printer, the wind lifted one corner of the petition.

I reached out to press it flat, and under my palm it wrinkled into nothing but creases.