Page 25 of Wrong Mail

I load the dishwasher. David goes up.

The house does its ticking and settling, and I stand at the island with the last of the wine and think about the eleven minutes he was gone.

Two minutes. That's what he'd said.

I open my phone. I'm not looking for anything. I remember a bill I meant to pay, one of those things that surfaces the second my head hits the pillow. So I open the account to pay it. It's the sort of small ordinary thing you do at eleven when you're avoiding going upstairs.

In the joint account, my eyes move over the last few transactions.

I almost click away.

Then I stop.

There it is, four lines down, plain as a shopping list.

CASH WITHDRAWAL. $4,000.

Thursday. He was still in Portland on Thursday. He took Sophie for ramen on Thursday.

I stand there in my kitchen with my thumb on the screen. I scroll up, and I scroll down, and there's nothing else out of place. Nothing hidden. Nothing clever. Just four thousand dollars in cash, taken out on a Thursday by David, who pays for parking with his phone.

Had he given money to Sophie?

No. Not four thousand. And not in cash. She isn't hurting, anyway, at least not according to David.

Upstairs, the floor creaks. He's moving around the bedroom, the way he does, opening and shutting drawers.

I look at the number for a long time.

Then I close the app, put the glass in the sink, and go up to my husband. I don't say a word about it.

Chapter Nine

Henry is at my gate, holding a bird.

I see him from the front room window, but I'm not afraid. What goes through me first is confusion, then curiosity, because nobody comes to my gate like that.

He's got a small wire travel cage in one hand, held low and level so it doesn't swing. Inside, there's a flash of color moving. He isn't ringing the bell. He's just standing there in the late-morning heat on the other side of my gate, waiting to be seen. David left for the hospital hours ago.

I go out.

He lifts a hand as I come down the drive, a small wave aimed at nothing. "Hi. Hey there."

"Henry." The gate's still between us. “From the other day."

"How are you?"

"I'm all right." I stop on my side of the gate. "What's, um..."

He holds the cage up level with his shoulder.

"A bird," he says.

“I…can see that." I know I'm frowning. I can't seem to stop.

"Oh, I've done this wrong, haven't I," Henry says. "I know how this must look. A man turns up at your gate with a bird."

"It's an unusual opening."