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“What do you mean, what else?”
“Not only was my credit card declined, Sean, so was my debit card. Which means that the money I thought was in our checking account—over five hundred dollars—is gone.”
“I’ve paid some bills. There have been other expenses, things you’ve asked me to pick up during the week.”
“That’s all?”
“There have been no other purchases, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“So, if I call the credit card company right now to ask about last month’s bill,” she says, pulling her phone from the side pocket of her skirt, “I’m not going to have any more unpleasant surprises?”
Sean swallows the tiny bit of saliva his mouth has managed to manufacture. “You’re accusing me of lying?”
“I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m asking.”
“Sounds a lot like the same thing.”
“I think you’ve lost the right to be indignant,” Olivia tells him.
“I’m sorry,” Sean apologizes immediately. “You’re right. It just hurts that you don’t trust me.”
“Believe me, it hurts me even more.”
“Youknowme, Olivia.”
“I thought I did.”
“Youdo. I promise.”
“You promise that there are no other charges on that card?” she asks.
He hesitates, trying to decide which carries the bigger risk, another lie or the truth.
“Sean?”
“There was a lunch at Ta-boo,” he says, opting for the truth. He almost laughs. He’s been lying for so long, it’s the truth that feels wrong.
“A lunch at Ta-boo?” Olivia repeats, her voice flat, void of inflection.
“After the interview. I was starving because I’d been too nervous to eat anything for breakfast, and I was so pleased with the way things had gone, I splurged on a nice lunch. It was selfish and it was a mistake, and I’m more sorry than you know.”
Olivia shakes her head. “You’re having lunch at Ta-boo and I’m having to borrow money from a woman I barely know to pay for groceries.”
He falls to his knees in front of her. “I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. I’ll do anything to make this right.”
Olivia doesn’t answer for what feels like an eternity. “Is there anything else,anything else at all,no matter how small or inconsequential you think it might be, that you’re not telling me?”
Sean searches his brain for something he can say that will erase the awful combination of pity and disappointment he sees on his wife’s face. It’s worse than the anger that was there before, worse than the hate he knows he deserves. It’s too much for one man to bear.
“Thereissomething,” he says, finally.
“Oh God,” she says, bracing herself. “What?”
Sean’s face suddenly breaks into a wide grin, like a child with a secret too big to contain any longer. “I got the job.”
“What?!”
“I got the job.”
