The salt shaker stood two inches to the left of the butter dish, right where Grant always put it.

He poured cream into his black coffee and didn’t offer me the pot.

I pressed my right thumb to the inside of my wrist and felt my pulse rise slow and steady while I read through the August electric bill.

The figures were fine, but the third page of our First Federal statement showed a balance that didn’t match the ledger in my drawer.

“The emergency reserve is short,” I said.

Grant set the porcelain pot down on the quartz counter without a sound.

He looked at his watch, a heavy gold chronograph his mother had given him when he joined the firm.

“I took care of the transfer myself, Emily, so you wouldn’t have to worry about commercial tax filings,” he said.

“Forty-one thousand dollars went out of the account on September ninth,” I said.

“It went into commercial land holdings,” he said, turning to the window that looked out over our backyard in West Hartford.

“The Hartford acquisition needed immediate liquidity.”

“We agreed that account needed two signatures for anything over five thousand.”

“That was before the market moved,” Grant said.

He took a small sip of coffee.

“I left nineteen thousand in the operating line, which is more than enough for groceries and Sophie’s ice skating lessons.”

He picked his briefcase up off the side chair, the knot of his silk tie sitting perfectly between the points of his starched blue collar.

“We’ll go over the quarterly allocation on Sunday,” he said.

He walked past me toward the door to the garage, leaving his half-empty mug on the counter.