After Cancer I Turn into A Badass novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Ledger

Veda quits the family store in front of customers, finds her husband's monthly deposits in the books, and refuses to sign her insurance over to her sister.

The bar at Fenner's Steakhouse was dark wood and low lamps, and nobody there knew my name.

Glenn took the stool beside mine and set his keys on the counter.

"What do you want?" he asked.

It was the first time in three years he had asked me that.

I looked at the bartender.

"The most expensive whiskey you have," I said. "And the steak with the lobster tail."

The bartender glanced at Glenn. Glenn nodded.

"I don't like whiskey," I told him.

"Then why order it?"

"Because I've never ordered anything I wanted."

He didn't smile. He almost never did.

But he turned a little on his stool, so his whole body faced me, and he stayed that way until the glass came.

The whiskey burned all the way down and I coughed until my eyes watered.

"Terrible," I said, and drank more.

"You should see someone else," he said. "A second doctor. A specialist."

"I will."

"I'll call tomorrow."

"I said I will, Glenn."

He nodded slowly. He had a way of nodding that made you feel you'd handed him a contract.

When we got home he walked me to the stairs.

My room was at the end of the upstairs hall. His was at the other end.

We had been married three years, and I had never once seen the inside of his.

"Good night, Veda," he said.

I stood in my doorway for a long time after his door closed.

The next morning I walked into Prewitt Hardware at nine, which was an hour late, and I didn't apologize.

The store smelled like cut keys and birdseed.

Two customers were at the register.

My mother stood behind it in her good blouse, ringing up a man's paint thinner.

"There she is," Mom said brightly, for the customers. "My poor girl. Look who came to work."

The man gave me a pitying look.

I walked past them into the back office.

My desk sat under the window, where it had sat since I was nineteen.

The mug with the chipped handle. The calculator. Ten years of ledgers in my own handwriting.

I took the store keys off my ring and put them in the middle of the blotter.

Then I got my purse and the mug.

My mother had followed me in. She closed the door behind her and the smile fell off her face.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm quitting."

"Don't be dramatic. The quarterly taxes are due Friday."

"Then someone should do them."

"You make three hundred and fifty dollars a week."

"I know, Mom. That's why I'm leaving."

She laughed, short and dry.

"You have six months to live. Where exactly are you going to go?"

"Everywhere," I said.

I opened the bottom desk drawer to clear it out and found a bank statement that wasn't mine.

It was from Mom's personal account.

I knew I shouldn't be looking at it. I looked anyway.

There was a deposit on the fifth of every month.

Four thousand dollars. Horvath Mechanical.

I turned the page. The same line, the month before. Then the one before that.

Thirty-six of them, going back to the spring after my wedding.

"That's my husband's company," I said.

My mother took the paper out of my hand so smoothly it was almost graceful.

"A loan repayment. Your father helped him once. It's none of your business."

"Glenn never told me about a loan."

"Because he's a private man, Veda. And so are we."

She put the statement in her blouse pocket and straightened her collar.

Then she reached into her purse and took out a folded document, with a pen already clipped to it.

"Since you're being so brave, there's something that would take a weight off everyone."

"What is it?"

"Your life insurance. The store's group policy, a hundred and fifty thousand. You named your father, and it should go to Daphne for the wedding debt."

I stared at her.

"The wedding debt," I said. "The debt I'm not paying anymore?"

"The debt your sister is going to carry, because you're abandoning her."

Through the glass in the office door I could see Joan stacking sacks of potting soil, pretending she wasn't watching.

Joan had worked the stockroom for eleven years. She caught my eye and mouthed, Don't.

I took the pen from Mom's hand.

I clicked it twice, set it on top of the paper, and slid both back across the desk to her.

"No."

"Veda."

"I'm going to spend it," I said. "All of it. On me."

My mother's face went smooth and still, which was how it looked when she was angriest.

She stepped closer and lowered her voice so the customers couldn't hear.

"Everything you have, you have because of this family. And your husband isn't what you think he is."

"What does that mean?"

She smiled.

"Ask Glenn what he's been paying for."

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