After that conversation, Michael started coming to the grocery store with me. He watched what I put in the cart as if I were stealing from our own refrigerator.
“Too expensive.”
“That’s unnecessary.”
“How many times do I have to tell you, we need to save!”
And whenever I asked directly where his paycheck went each month, he deflected smoothly.
“Retirement accounts. Loan payments. Adult things you don’t need to worry about.”
But our regular bills weren’t even half his monthly salary. I wasn’t unintelligent.
Just quiet.
And increasingly observant.
Until I found the bills he’d been hiding.
One afternoon, he left his office door unlocked. I had exactly ten minutes before picking up Micah from daycare—a daycare I’d been paying for out of my own dwindling savings.
I hadn’t planned to search through his things.
But I moved with sudden purpose.
On the bottom shelf, inside manila folders, I found rent receipts and utility bills—all addressed to an apartment I didn’t recognize at all.
There was also a check made out to “Horizon Medical Billing” and another to “Fairgrove Oxygen Supply.”
I stood there holding those papers like they were burning my fingers.
Was he paying for another home somewhere?
Another family?
Following the Trail
I didn’t sleep at all that night.
By morning, Micah was at daycare, Nicole was secured in her stroller, and I was in a cab giving the driver the address I’d scribbled down.
At a red light, I spotted Michael’s car—the distinctive dent by the license plate made identification certain.
I told the driver to hang back and follow at a distance.
Michael pulled into the same apartment complex listed in the folder.
So I wasn’t imagining things or being paranoid.
The cab stopped across the street.
“That him?” the driver asked.
“Yes.”
I’d told him everything during the ride over. My mind was too loud to stay quiet.
“I can give you ten minutes. Then I’m leaving—shift change.”
“I don’t have more cash than what I showed you.”
“Then make it quick.”
Seven minutes later, Michael came back out, got into his car, and drove away.
“What now?” the driver asked.
“I don’t know. I have no idea how I’m getting back home.”
“You want me to leave you here?”
I hesitated, then pulled Nicole closer against my chest.
“Yeah. Go ahead.”
The cab disappeared, leaving me alone in an unfamiliar part of town.
I stared at the building.
“Okay, Flo. Get yourself together.”
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