Chapter 3
Patrick was transferring anywhere from 1,000 to 2,700 dollars to Penelope every month. And here I was hesitating over 60 dollars.
I put my phone down.
I didn't cry. I went to the kitchen and got myself some water.
Then, I came back and kept digging through the records. I needed to see the full amount he'd sent her. I checked every single payment from two years ago all the way up to last month.
I didn't bother with a spreadsheet or make a folder. I just kept scrolling, and sometimes my finger would pause when a certain transaction caught my eye.
I wasn't keeping track of the money. I was just trying to see how long I'd been lied to.
*****
On the fourth day, I went back home.
Patrick wasn't there. Penelope wasn't there either. But her things were still there.
There was a full set of skincare products in the bathroom. It was not the kind at the supermarket, but the kind at the department store beauty counter.
There was a few more dresses that had appeared in the closet.
Penelope had claimed the right side of the closet. My clothes were squeezed over to the left.
There was a half-finished cup of milkshake on the coffee table, a lipstick stain on the rim.
I opened the fridge. Inside, I found strawberries, yogurt, and some little cakes. I'd never seen stuff like this in the fridge before.
I've lived here for eight years, and the fridge was always just full of veggies and meat.
After Penelope came, the fridge suddenly had strawberries and little cakes in it.
I closed the fridge.
I walked into the bedroom. The sheets had been changed. They used to be the gray-blue cotton ones I bought, but now they were pink, covered in tiny floral prints. The pillows had been changed too.
There were two pillows.
On the pillow on my side, I found a long strand of hair.
It wasn't mine. My hair barely reached my shoulders, but hers was waist-length.
I stood by the bed for a moment. Then I headed to the spare room.
The door was open, and everything inside was neat and tidy. Nothing had changed.
This was where I'd crash whenever I worked late and didn't want to wake him up.
It finally hit me. It wasn't just me crashing in the spare room every now and then. Turned out I was the one meant for the spare room. Patrick had given Penelope the master bedroom.
I stood at the doorway of the spare room. The pothos plant on the windowsill was still hanging in there. I was the one who'd kept it alive.
For three whole years, I watered it, but nobody ever bothered to say it looked nice.
*****
On the fifth day, Patrick called me. "Where have you been these past few days?" he asked.
"At Lucy's house," I replied.
Patrick asked, "When are you coming back?"
I didn't say anything.
He said, "Penny left. You can come back now."
Penny. He called her Penny.
"Who is she?" I asked.
There was silence on the other end for a couple of seconds.
"Just a friend. She was staying here for a few days, temporarily. She's gone now," Patrick said.
A friend, huh. A friend who slipped into my pajamas. A friend who helped herself to my skincare products.
A friend who took over my bed, swapped out my sheets, and filled my fridge with strawberries and little cakes.
"Patrick," I said.
"Yeah?" he replied.
"Do you take me for a fool?" I asked.
He went quiet again.
Then his tone softened a bit. "Maisey, I know you're upset about what you found. But it's nothing. She was staying here for a few days, that's all. It won't happen again."
I almost couldn't help but laugh. "And all that money you sent to Penelope. Does that count as 'nothing' too?"
This time, he stayed silent even longer.
"Did you go through my phone?" he finally said.
That was the first thing out of his mouth. Not, "Let me explain." Just, "Did you go through my phone?"
It almost felt like he was the victim here.
"Maisey, you shouldn't have done this. Trust is what matters most in a marriage," Patrick said.
Trust? He really said trust.
I hung up on him.
That night, my mother-in-law, Jane Dorsey, called.
"Maisey, Patrick said you two had a little argument," she said.
She said it was a little argument.
"Jane, he let another woman stay at our place," I said.
Jane said, "Oh, Maisey, men will be men. You know how it is. They go out, socialize, and make a few friends. It's nothing out of the ordinary."
I said, "Jane, she was wearing my clothes and sleeping in my bed."
Jane said, "But she's gone now. Don't let it bother you. Patrick told me she was a friend. You're just overthinking it. If you took care of the house and treated Patrick a bit better, he wouldn't have done what he did..."
She stopped herself.
She didn't finish her sentence. But I knew exactly what she meant.
She was basically saying it was my fault he cheated. Because I wasn't good enough.
He let the other woman move into the house I paid for, just because I wasn't good enough.
"Jane," I said.
"Yes?" she replied.
I said, "I was the one who put down 130 thousand dollars for the down payment. For eight years, I paid over 240 thousand dollars in mortgage. Renovations, furniture, appliances... Almost everything was on me."
There was a moment of silence on the other end.
Then Jane said, "Come on, Maisey, we're family. Why bring up money?"
I almost laughed again.
When it was my money, I was "family." But when he let another woman move in, suddenly I was just a nuisance.
"Jane, I can't talk right now," I said.
Jane said, "Maisey, don't overreact. Let's talk things through. We're family..."
I hung up.
I went back home.
Sure enough, Patrick had only packed away some of Penelope's things. But he didn't really finish the job.
Most of the skincare products were gone from the bathroom, but one bottle of body lotion was still sitting there, left behind.
The dresses on the right side of the closet had disappeared, but there was still a jacket tucked away in the back.
The strawberries were gone from the fridge, but two cups of yogurt were still sitting there.
He didn't really kick her out. He just had her lay low for a while.
I checked every inch of the house.
I wasn't hunting for evidence. I was just searching for signs she'd ever been here.
Under the bed, I found a single earring. It wasn't mine.