I realized then that they had been in contact the entire time. Every family holiday where Mark sat silently in the corner, he was thinking about Brenda. Every time he complained about our grocery budget, he was preparing to sign my name to another thirty-thousand-dollar loan.

I think part of me already knew something was wrong. I remember finding a receipt for a luxury hotel in Chicago from two years ago in his glove box. I asked him about it, and he told me it was a business trip for the auto plant. I believed him. I wanted to believe him. That is the part I am most ashamed of now.

The arrest happened on a Thursday morning. It wasn’t like a movie. There were no flashing sirens or screaming neighbors. Two unmarked cars pulled into our driveway while Mark was loading his plastic lunchbox into his truck.

They handcuffed him right next to his driver-side door. I watched through the kitchen window as his forehead pressed against the wet black metal of the truck he loved so much. He looked at the house once, his eyes wide and panicked, but I didn’t open the door.

I watched the officers search his pockets. They pulled out his wallet, his keys, and a small, folded piece of paper. It was a deposit slip for the Nevada account.

The trial was a blur of paperwork and dry courtrooms. Mark tried to claim I knew about the loans. He tried to say I had given him verbal permission because of my sister’s desperate situation. But Agent Miller had three years of text messages between Mark and Brenda.

The messages were devastating. Mark had written to Brenda: “Karen won’t check her credit report. She doesn’t even know how to log in. We’re safe.”

Brenda had replied with a laughing emoji. It was written on a Tuesday afternoon while I was at work, entering billing codes for patients with broken bones.

The judge didn’t show any mercy. Because it was interstate wire fraud and identity theft, the federal guidelines were harsh. Mark was sentenced to four years in federal prison. Brenda was arrested in Reno by local authorities and received six years.

I sold his black truck to a dealership in Cleveland to help pay down the remaining debt that the banks wouldn’t discharge. It didn’t cover everything, but it was enough to keep the bank from taking my home.

The day they towed the truck away, our neighbor Mrs. Gable stood on her porch and watched. She didn’t say anything, but she nodded to me when the flatbed pulled out of the driveway.

I found the green tin of wax still sitting on the garage shelf. I didn’t throw it away. I don’t know why. It is still sitting out there next to the rusty garden shears.