Wouldn’t you know it, the money started moving. Not all at once. That’s the thing about how he did it, it was slow and quiet. A piece here, a piece there. Over three months that money went through four different accounts, and by the time I went looking, the whole hundred and thirty-eight thousand was just gone.

Like water down a drain. I called Diane the second I saw the balance, my voice all wobbly, and asked her what on earth happened to it.

She didn’t even hesitate. “It’s invested,” she said. Calm as anything. “Wayne moved it somewhere with a better return.” I asked her where, exactly. I asked her for one piece of paper, one statement, one account name. She got quiet. Then she got short with me. “Why are you making this a thing? Don’t you trust me?” And there it was. He’d already gotten to her. In her head, doubting him was the same as doubting her. I hung up the phone and sat at my kitchen table for a long, long time.

Here’s what I want you to understand. There were no investments. I knew it the way you know a stove is hot before you touch it. But I had no proof, and I had no money for a lawyer, and every lawyer I called wanted a retainer bigger than my Social Security check. I could have screamed at Wayne. I could have made a scene at the next family supper. And he would have looked at me with those flat eyes and called me a bitter old woman, and Diane would have believed him over me. I’d have lost the money and my sister both. I just sat with that for a few weeks. Too quiet, those weeks. The kind of quiet where you’re thinking hard.

And then I did something I have never told a soul until right now.

I figured out which bank branch Wayne ran the money through. It was a little branch about twenty minutes from my house. And that branch, go figure, was hiring a teller. Part time. Fourteen dollars an hour. I’m a retired bookkeeper, so the numbers part was nothing to me. I put on my good blouse, I went in, and I sat across from a manager half my age and I smiled and told her I just wanted to stay busy in my retirement. She loved that. “We could use someone steady,” she said. I started in October.

Now, I’m not going to lie to you, the first week I was terrified Wayne would walk in and know my face. We’ve sat at the same table for thirty Christmases. But I remembered. He doesn’t see people behind counters. I was banking on it, no pun intended, and I was right.