His Ex Never Left the Family, So I Left the Marriage novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Logistics

Jason calls the chat logistics, Heather finds $2,500 a month going to Andrea from their joint account, and he tells her Sunday is family only.

Jason came down the stairs in a gray T-shirt, rubbing a towel over his hair.

"Smells good," he said. "Did you get the soy sauce?"

Then he saw his phone in my hand.

He stopped on the bottom step.

It was half a second.

Then he smiled and kept walking.

"What are you doing on my phone, babe?"

"Ordering soy sauce."

I turned the screen toward him.

"Then I found your family."

Max's pencil stopped moving.

Jason glanced at his son, then back at me.

"Max, go finish that upstairs, okay?"

Max picked up his worksheet and went.

He didn't look at me on the way past.

He knew exactly what was on that screen.

He was in it.

Jason waited until Max's door shut.

"Heather, it's not what you think."

"I haven't said what I think."

I scrolled to the top and read the first message out loud.

"Okay. It's done. Nothing changes. Andrea is still family and she's still at every dinner. Heather doesn't need to know about this group."

My voice stayed flat.

I was proud of that later.

"You sent that on our wedding night," I said. "At 11:52. I was asleep next to you."

He tossed the towel over the back of a chair.

"It's logistics. For Max."

"Logistics."

"Pickups. Birthdays. Who has him when. Andrea's his mother. She has to be in the loop."

"Christmas Eve was logistics?"

He didn't answer.

"Thanksgiving was logistics? You told me your mother had the flu."

"She was getting over a cold."

"You ate turkey at noon and then ate pad thai with me at seven and said it was the best Thanksgiving you ever had."

He rubbed the back of his neck.

"My mom isn't good with change, okay? The divorce almost killed her. She's had Andrea at that table for twelve years."

"And me for zero."

"You're making this bigger than it is."

I looked down at his phone.

The banking app sat right there on his home screen, next to the chat.

His code opened that too.

"Heather. Give me the phone."

I didn't.

I opened our joint account.

I knew that account. I put five thousand dollars into it every month. He put in fifteen hundred.

I had never once checked his side of it.

I scrolled.

Groceries. Gas. Max's soccer.

Then a transfer on the first of the month.

Two thousand five hundred dollars to Andrea Kirkland.

Memo: Max.

I scrolled back.

The first of August. The first of July. The first of June.

Same amount. Same memo.

It went back to July of last year.

Fifteen payments.

I did the math standing there with the burner still warm beside me.

Thirty-seven thousand five hundred dollars.

"You're paying her child support," I said.

"It's not child support."

"Max lives here. With us. I pack his lunch. I take him to the dentist. She sees him every other Saturday."

"She's struggling, Heather."

"So you pay her out of my money."

"It's our money."

"It's my five thousand and your fifteen hundred. And you sent her two and a half every month."

He came around the table and reached for the phone.

I stepped back.

Further down the list was another charge from this afternoon.

Three thousand eight hundred dollars. A furniture store.

The massage recliner.

"Your dad's birthday present came out of this account too."

"It's from both of us."

"Then why is the chat saying he's been asking about you and Andrea all week?"

He stopped.

His jaw worked.

Then he dropped his voice into the soft, reasonable tone he used on his mother.

"Andrea needs to feel like a mother. She lost everything when she left. Her marriage, her house, her kid. Mom gives her a place to land. I help a little. It's not a crime to be kind."

"She left you for a man in Cincinnati."

"And it destroyed her."

I looked at him for a long time.

"I want to go on Sunday," I said.

His face changed.

"No."

"It's your father's sixty-fifth birthday. I'm his son's wife."

"Heather."

"I'll bring something. I'll be polite. I'll sit wherever your mother puts me."

He laughed, short and tired.

"You don't get it. They're used to how things are. You'll walk in and everyone will have to perform."

"Perform what?"

"Being nice to you."

The words sat between us.

He didn't take them back.

He held out his hand for the phone.

I emailed the screen recording to myself and deleted the sent message.

Then I let him take it.

He locked the screen and slid it into his pocket.

Then he kissed my forehead, the same way he did every night before bed.

"Sunday is family only," he said. "Don't make it weird."

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