He didn’t reply.

He picked up his plate and walked toward the dining room, leaving me alone under the bright kitchen light.

I walked back down the dark hallway to my guest room and pulled my leather checkbook register from under my pillow.

I opened it to the very last line and stared at the twelve hundred dollars written in my own blue handwriting, without a single receipt pinned beside it.

I set the worn leather checkbook register on the small nightstand beside my bed and smoothed down the front of my dark blue wool cardigan with both thumbs.