The second message said, “She doesn’t know about the account we opened, does she?” I was standing in the kitchen when Curtis walked through the door. I didn’t confront him immediately. I put my phone down, made coffee, and asked how inventory had gone. He answered too quickly. Then I asked, “Who is Erin?” His face changed before he could hide it. He sat down and finally admitted that our son had never lost the $12,000. Curtis had helped him move it into a separate account because they knew I’d refuse to pay anything else once I discovered what they’d done with the money. The wedding wasn’t the reason for the secrecy. There was something else they were protecting.
I asked Curtis to show me every statement. He hesitated, then brought out a folder from the garage. The account wasn’t in our son’s name. It was in Curtis’s. For the past year, money had been moving in and out of it, including payments from a contractor I’d never heard of. Curtis finally admitted that our son had used part of the down payment money to cover a business debt, then borrowed more from his father to replace it before I noticed. The contractor payments were supposed to repay Curtis. But then I found one final transfer dated three days earlier — $12,000 sent directly to Erin. I looked at my husband and asked, “So what exactly am I supposed to believe?”
Curtis didn’t answer. Instead, his phone buzzed again on the table. Erin had sent another message: “Tell her tonight. If you don’t, I will.” I picked up my coat and told Curtis I was going to see Erin myself. He finally admitted there was one more person involved — the wedding venue owner, who had been holding a deposit under a completely different name. The next morning, I met Erin at a diner outside town. She slid an envelope across the table and said, “Your son didn’t spend your money. Your husband did.” Inside were copies of checks going back two years, all signed by Curtis. I looked at the first one, then at the last one, and realized the $12,000 wasn’t the beginning of the story. It was the first amount he’d been certain I’d notice.
