The Table I Never Sat At

Chapter 2 The Drawer

Gerald went to bed angry, which is to say he went to bed. I sat in the chair until the house ticked. Then I went to his desk.

I had not opened that drawer in my life. It was not locked. It did not need to be. I was the woman who ate at the counter.

Inside: tax folders. A will I had never seen. Insurance. A second will, newer, with a sticky note in Diana's handwriting: Peter says she'll never ask. And a power of attorney with my name signed in a handwriting that was almost mine, the R a little too careful, the way a person writes when they are copying a Christmas card.

I photographed every page with the phone Peter had given me for emergencies. I put the papers back. I slept in the guest room because the marriage bed felt like a place setting that was not mine.

In the morning Gerald said, "We'll talk to the bank together. You'll see."

"I'll go alone."

He did not like that. He drove anyway, behind me, in the sedan, while I took the old Toyota to Sunrise Community Bank and asked for a woman named Helen Cho who had once helped me with a Christmas club in 1989.

Helen looked at the statement. She looked at me. She pulled the signature card.

"Mrs. Pell," she said. My name. Rose Pell. "This account was opened with a driver's license and a second ID. The second ID was a household bill. The signature does not match the card we have on your checking from 1998. I can freeze it pending a fraud claim. I need you to say the word."

"Freeze it."

Gerald came in while she was typing. He started to speak. Helen said, "Sir, if you are not on this account, you will wait in the lobby."

He was not on this account. Diana was. I was, in a lie.

Helen printed a packet. I sat in the lobby and read it. Eleven transfers from the household account, initiated online, from an IP address I would later learn was four houses down.

Diana's house.