Chapter 5
Eleven more months.
At the current rent, Owen had committed more than twenty-five thousand dollars to Beth’s apartment. That didn’t include the birthday party or the expenses he claimed were repayments.
I sent the lease information to Rachel. She called within minutes.
“Don’t close the joint account yet,” she said. “First, confirm what Owen guaranteed. You can stop new spending, but an existing lease may affect the separation.”
“I never agreed to guarantee anything.”
“Then make him explain it.”
The bank scheduled a meeting for that afternoon.
Tessa drove me. The pain medication slowed my thoughts, so I sat in the lobby until I felt steady enough to walk into the office.
Owen was already there.
He wore his dark blue fire department uniform. An untouched cup of coffee sat in front of him. He stood as soon as he saw me.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said. “I can handle this.”
“You’ve been handling it for eleven months.”
The account manager asked us to sit. She explained that freezing our credit cards wouldn’t stop the rent payments. Harbor View withdrew the money directly from our joint checking account.
If I blocked the next payment, Monday’s withdrawal would fail. The property manager would require Owen to provide a new account and a new guarantee.
If he couldn’t, Beth would receive a lease violation notice.
“Would she be evicted immediately?” I asked.
“No. She would have time to pay and provide another guarantor. The landlord could begin terminating the lease if she failed to do either.”
Owen turned toward me. “Beth won’t qualify on her own. Her income is too low, and Maisie’s father doesn’t pay child support. Someone had to step in.”
“And you decided it had to be you.”
“Who else was there?”
“Then pay from your personal account.”
“My paycheck also covers our mortgage.”
“So does mine.”
He leaned forward. “That’s why we need to discuss this. Restore the payments for now. Beth can look for a cheaper place.”
“When were you planning to tell me?”
Owen glanced at the account manager.
“Elena, can we talk outside?”
“No.”
She lowered her eyes to the documents and stayed out of it.
I asked again. “When were you going to tell me that we were paying Beth’s rent?”
“I thought it was temporary.”
“Eleven months isn’t temporary.”
“She needed a safe apartment. Maisie couldn’t keep living in that old place.”
“How much has Beth repaid?”
“She’s been paying me back.”
“How much?”
His mouth tightened. “She gave me three hundred dollars last summer. We offset the rest with things I paid for Maisie.”
There had been no repayment plan.
No records. No agreed amount.
Owen had simply decided that anything he bought for Maisie counted as money Beth had returned to us.
“Why did you hide it?” I asked.
“We were starting the second IVF cycle. You were already tracking medication, appointments, and storage fees. I didn’t want to add more stress.”
“You knew I would say no.”
“I knew you didn’t have room to think about another family.”
He said it calmly, as if deceiving me had been an act of consideration.
The account manager placed two forms on the desk. One would allow the rent payments to continue. The other would block Monday’s withdrawal.
“You don’t have to decide today,” she said. “But if you want the change processed before Monday, we need the form by five.”
Owen checked the time.
“We have forty minutes.”
“That’s your deadline,” I said. “Not mine.”
“If the payment fails, Beth gets a violation notice.”
“Because you guaranteed her lease.”
“Maisie doesn’t know what a guarantor is. She’ll only know she has to move again.”
I pulled the stop-payment form toward me.
Owen held down the other side.
“You can hate me. You can divorce me.” His voice dropped. “But don’t use an eight-year-old to punish me.”
“Let go.”
He didn’t.
The account manager looked up. “Mr. Reed.”
Owen released the paper.
I picked up the pen.
His control finally cracked.
“We couldn’t save our baby, Elena.”
My hand stopped over the signature line.
For one sharp second, I was back in the ultrasound room, with the applause from Maisie’s birthday still coming through my phone.
He looked straight at me.
“Are you really going to punish another child for surviving?”
Maisie was innocent. So was I.
He had taken the worst night of my life and turned it into leverage. Maisie needed a stable home, but that did not make me responsible for the promises he had made behind my back.
Refusing to finance his deception was not punishing a child.
My fingers closed around the pen.