Chapter 2
Daniel slid my mother’s watch into the red folder without asking if I had changed my mind.
“Nine-thirty tomorrow morning,” he said as he closed it. “I made an appointment at the pawnshop.”
“You already scheduled it?”
“We don’t have time to waste.”
He picked up his wine and took a sip. The roast remained untouched, and my anniversary card was still buried under the stack of bills.
Daniel slept in his office that night.
I lay awake in our bedroom, painfully aware of my bare wrist. Every time I turned over, I reached for the watch out of habit and found only the faint red mark left by the band.
I told myself it was temporary.
I would have ninety days to get it back.
We had been short on money before. When Daniel first started the company, he sold his motorcycle, and I canceled the honeymoon we had spent a year planning.
Years earlier, when my mother was in the hospital, he sat beside me all night in a plastic chair. He had even covered one of her admission deposits when I couldn’t.
I remembered those things.
That was why I walked into the pawnshop at exactly nine-thirty the next morning.
The shop was wedged between a dry cleaner and a pharmacy.
The man behind the counter put on a pair of gloves and placed the watch on a black velvet pad. He examined the face and band through a magnifying glass.
“It’s in excellent condition,” he said. “Are you looking to sell it or take out a loan against it?”
“A loan.”
He typed something into his computer.
“I can offer you sixty-four hundred dollars. You’ll have ninety days to repay the loan and fees. Once that’s done, the watch is yours again.”
Four hundred dollars more than Daniel had written on his list.
The man slid the paperwork toward me, then glanced at the pale band around my wrist.
“If you’re not sure, you can take it home and think about it. The appraisal is good through the end of the day.”
I gripped the pen.
Daniel’s words from the night before came back to me. If losing a watch frightened me more than losing him, then he would finally know what our marriage was worth.
“I’m sure.”
I signed my name.
The man placed the watch inside a clear protective sleeve and attached a numbered tag. As he sealed the bag, my hand moved toward it before I stopped myself.
He handed me the claim ticket.
“Keep this somewhere safe. Getting it back will be a lot harder without it.”
I folded the ticket and tucked it into the deepest pocket of my wallet.
Once I was back in my car, I transferred the entire sixty-four hundred dollars into the account Daniel had given me. It was labeled Whitman Family Emergency Fund.
He called less than a minute later.
“The money came through,” he said.
His voice was low. People were talking behind him, and dishes clinked nearby. It sounded like a restaurant.
“Where are you?”
“Meeting a client.”
“Which client?”
He paused. “Nora, I don’t have time to account for every minute of my day. Did everything go okay with the watch?”
“Yes. I have ninety days to redeem it.”
“We’ll deal with that after the company recovers.”
Not we’ll get it back.
Just we’ll deal with it.
After he hung up, I stayed behind the wheel. The folder from the night before lay on the passenger seat.
I logged in to our shared credit card account, intending to verify some of the overdue expenses Daniel had listed.
The company card had not been frozen.
Three days earlier, it had been charged $1,284 at the Bellweather Hotel downtown.
Daniel once said only fools paid that much for a hotel room.
I took a screenshot and sent it to him.
His reply came ten minutes later.
Investor meeting. Celeste booked the room because the lobby wasn’t private enough.
An investor meeting.
A room booked by Celeste.
I checked the date twice.
That night, Daniel had texted me that the Bradley project was in trouble and he had to sleep at the office.
At one in the morning, I drove there with dinner and a clean shirt.
The office was dark.
Daniel had told me he had been called to the job site.
Now he was telling me he had been at a hotel.