I was keeping money somewhere your mother couldn’t stop me from buying soap, food, and bus fare.

I also used it to pay for legal advice.

I will show you what I choose when I’m ready, but I need you not to treat survival as a betrayal.

I read it twice.

My mother’s insinuation had worked for perhaps ten minutes, because some part of me still feared discovering another secret.

Then I saw how absurd my suspicion was.

My wife had needed a protected source of money because the finances we shared had been used to control her.