When I Cut Off the Payments, My Mama's Boy Husband's Family Panicked novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Day Ten

Julie answers the group chat with six years of bills, the past-due notices reach Jeff's office, and Jeff turns up at her parents' door with a question about a house.

I sat up in the dark so the phone light wouldn't wake Evie.

I didn't need to look anything up.

I'd kept the spreadsheet since the week of the wedding. Every payment, every receipt, every late night.

I typed it into the family chat line by line.

"Since the wedding, I have paid:"

"Down payment on the house: $28,000."

"Mortgage: $151,200."

"Car loan on Jeff's SUV: $29,760."

"Daycare: $27,000."

"HOA and utilities: $29,412.18."

"Evie's hospital stay: $1,300."

"Total: $266,672.18."

"Jeff has paid: $0."

"Ron, you're welcome to post a screenshot of that."

I hit send.

Then I tapped the group name, scrolled to the bottom, and pressed Leave.

Julie Mattingly left the group.

I put the phone face down on the nightstand and slept nine hours for the first time since Evie was born.

The next week was quiet.

Too quiet, my dad said.

Jeff didn't call.

Nobody from the Mattingly side called.

I dropped Evie at Little Acorns at seven-thirty and went to the credit union.

I helped a nurse refinance her truck.

I helped a retired couple open a savings account for their grandson.

I ate lunch at my desk and didn't check my phone once, which was a lie.

Day ten was a Thursday.

At 8:14 a.m. Jeff texted me a photo.

A bright orange notice taped to our front door.

FINAL NOTICE: PAYMENT PAST DUE.

At 8:20, another photo.

The HOA letter, on the letterhead with the little oak tree.

Late fee. Second notice. Intent to file a lien.

At 8:31, a third.

The electric company. Disconnection scheduled.

Then nothing for two hours.

I knew why at 10:40, when he called.

I took it in the break room with the door shut.

"Julie."

His voice was high and thin.

"The bank called my office."

"Which bank?"

"The car people. The SUV. They called the front desk and asked for me by name. My manager walked the phone over to my desk. In front of everybody. In front of the interns."

"The loan lists your work number. You were the reference."

"Why am I the reference?"

"Because it's your car, Jeff. It's in my name because your credit was too thin. You've been driving it for four years."

"Then pay it!"

A coworker opened the break room door, saw my face, and closed it again.

I lowered my voice.

"I made you an offer in writing. Fifty-fifty, the day your check comes home. It's still there."

"I can't just take my check. Dad manages it. You know that."

"Then ask him for six hundred and twenty dollars."

He didn't answer.

I could hear him breathing.

"How much is on your card, Jeff?"

"What?"

"The allowance card. The three hundred."

A long pause.

"Forty-one dollars."

"Then you have a problem."

"You did this on purpose."

"Yes," I said. "Six years on purpose, too. You just never noticed that part."

I hung up and went back to my desk and approved a home equity line for a couple who brought me cookies.

I ate two cookies.

I couldn't taste either one.

That night my mother made spaghetti and my dad read Evie the same dinosaur book four times.

At eight-thirty she fell asleep with a plastic stegosaurus in each fist.

At nine, the doorbell rang.

My dad looked at me over his reading glasses.

"Want me to get it?"

"No."

I opened the front door.

Jeff stood on the porch in his work polo and his lanyard.

His hair stood up on one side.

His glasses were smudged.

He wasn't holding flowers or a check or anything at all.

"Can I come in?"

"No. Evie's asleep."

He looked past me into the hall, at the dinosaur fort my dad still hadn't taken down.

"I went to see Dad after work," he said.

"And?"

"I asked him for the car payment. Just the car payment. And he got so mad, Julie. He threw a golf club across the garage."

I folded my arms.

"Did you ask him for your paycheck?"

"I said maybe I could keep a little of it. Just for a few months. Just until you came home."

"And?"

He swallowed.

"He said if I take my check back, he loses the house."

I frowned.

"Your parents' house?"

"No. That's what I asked."

Jeff looked at me, and for the first time in six years he looked like he really wanted me to have the answer.

"He meant the lake house. He said they'd lose the lake house, Julie. How do you lose a house you own?"

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