When I Cut Off the Payments, My Mama's Boy Husband's Family Panicked novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Worthington

Julie walks out with Evie to her parents' house, offers Jeff a fair split in writing, and her father-in-law tags her under another transfer screenshot.

I looked at my mother-in-law standing in my front hall.

Pearl earrings. Pink cardigan. A tuna casserole on my bench.

"Like I always do," I said.

"That's right."

"I don't anymore, Sharon."

She didn't move.

Behind me, Evie kicked her sneakers against the car seat.

"Mommy, go. Go, go, go."

Sharon's voice went soft again, the way it did at church.

"You'll wake Jeff. You want him to wake up to this?"

"I left him a note."

I picked up the second suitcase.

She stayed planted in the doorway to the garage.

So I walked straight at her.

Not fast. Just steady.

At the last second she stepped aside.

"You'll be back by Friday," she said to my back. "Women like you always come back."

I put the suitcase in the trunk.

Then I went back inside, picked up her casserole, and handed it to her.

"Jeff likes it with extra cheese," I said.

I hit the garage button and backed out while it was still rising.

My parents' house in Worthington still had the same brass mailbox my dad polished every spring.

He was on the porch in his slippers before I'd turned off the engine.

He didn't ask anything.

He took one look at the suitcases and opened his arms for Evie.

"There's my girl."

"Grandpa, actually, I'm not your girl. I'm a T. rex."

"My mistake. There's my T. rex."

My mother came out drying her hands on a dish towel.

She looked at my face for a long second.

Then she said, "Your room's made up. I changed the sheets Saturday. I don't know why. God knew, I guess."

My childhood room still had the yellow curtains and the corkboard full of swim ribbons.

I sat on the twin bed and didn't cry, mostly because I didn't have time.

By ten, my dad had built a dinosaur fort in the living room.

All eight couch cushions, two kitchen chairs and the good quilt my mother told him never to touch.

"That's the good quilt," my mother said.

"It's a cave," my dad said. "Dinosaurs need a cave."

Evie crawled in and roared.

My mother sighed and went to get a flashlight for the cave.

I took my laptop to the kitchen table.

I wrote Jeff an email, because a note under a water bottle can disappear.

Jeff,

I've paid the mortgage, the car loan, the HOA, the utilities and daycare for six years.

Starting today I've stopped paying everything except daycare.

The day your paycheck goes into an account you and I control, I'll split every household bill with you fifty-fifty, to the dollar.

Evie and I are at my parents'. You can see her any time. Just call first.

Julie

I read it three times.

Then I hit send and went to cut the crusts off a grilled cheese.

He called at 11:42.

I took it on the back porch.

"Are you serious right now?"

"Did you read the email?"

"Mom says you threw her casserole at her."

"I handed it to her."

"Julie, this is so dramatic. You took my daughter over a glass."

"I took our daughter because you threw a glass at the floor next to her."

"It wasn't next to her."

"She was on my lap, Jeff."

He breathed hard into the phone.

"I can't do this at work. Dad says you're having some kind of episode. He says give it a week."

"Then give it a week."

I hung up.

My hands were shaking, so I put them in my armpits and watched a robin pull at a worm in my dad's lawn until they stopped.

Dinner was meatloaf, because my mother believes meatloaf fixes things.

Evie refused the meatloaf and ate four dinner rolls.

"Evie," my dad said, "do you know what dinosaurs eat?"

"Actually, Grandpa, some eat plants and some eat other dinosaurs."

"Which kind are you?"

She looked at the meatloaf.

"The roll kind."

My mother laughed so hard she had to put her fork down.

I laughed too, and it hurt somewhere under my ribs.

After dinner my dad washed and I dried, the way we did when I was twelve.

He handed me a plate.

"You need money?"

"No."

"Julie."

"I have a job, Dad. I just finally get to keep my paycheck."

He nodded and handed me another plate.

"I never liked that watch," he said.

"What watch?"

"Ron's. Big gold thing. A man who wears a watch like that wants you to ask what it cost."

On Tuesday I went to work and approved two car loans and a roof.

On Wednesday Jeff didn't call at all.

That night I put Evie to bed in my old room, with her dinosaur blanket and a nightlight my mother had dug out of a closet.

She was asleep in four minutes.

I lay down next to her with my phone.

It buzzed.

The Mattingly Family chat.

Ron had posted the same transfer screenshot from last Thursday.

$8,200. Sender: Jeff Mattingly. Receiver: Ron Mattingly.

Underneath it, the caption.

"A good son is worth more than anything."

And under that, a second line.

"@Julie Mattingly, reposting in case you forgot whose money this is."

Jeff's brother sent a laughing face.

Sharon sent a red flower.

Jeff, whose money it was, sent nothing at all.

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