Chapter 10: Six Years

I set down the cookie cutter.

"Where are you?"

"Kroger lot on Polaris. The gas light's on."

"Why did he cut you off?"

"He came home from breakfast and took the card out of my wallet. He cut it in half with the kitchen scissors. In front of Mom."

I looked at Evie at the table, biting the head off a grilled-cheese stegosaurus.

I sent Jeff forty dollars.

In the memo I typed, "Gas. Tomorrow, ten a.m., the house. Bring your laptop."

He wrote back.

"Why?"

"Because it's your account too, Jeff. Your name is on it. You're going to log in and look."

He didn't answer for a long time.

Then: "Okay."

The grass in our front yard was up to my shins.

There were three orange notices taped to the door, one on top of the other.

The HOA had put a little green flag in the lawn, the kind they use to mark violations.

Jeff's SUV was already in the driveway.

He was sitting on the front step with his laptop on his knees, waiting for me.

"Power's still off," he said.

"I know."

Inside, the house smelled like the refrigerator.

The kitchen was full of gray Saturday light.

My bills were gone from the table, but the table was the same.

The same chair Jeff stood up from to get his water bottle, the night he told me to find a cheaper daycare.

We sat down across from each other.

He opened the laptop and ran it off the hotspot on his phone.

"I don't know the password," he said. "I've never logged in."

"Then reset it. It's your email on file. It has to be. You're the account holder."

He clicked.

He waited.

His phone buzzed with the code, and his hand shook a little typing it in.

The account opened.

Joint checking. Ron Mattingly and Jeffrey Mattingly.

Balance: $212.40.

Jeff stared at it.

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