Last Tuesday night I had the checkbook open on the kitchen table like always. The numbers on the fifteenth just didn’t line up.

I pulled the old statements from the bottom drawer. Same transfer every month. Eight hundred dollars. Eight years running.

Frank was already in bed. I sat there with the papers until my eyes started to blur.

We got married in 1987. I took care of the bills because Frank said he was no good with numbers. Every Friday he handed me his check. I paid the mortgage, put a little aside, and made sure the lights stayed on. That was our deal and it worked fine for a long time.

I never asked where the rest went. He liked his Saturday golf and the occasional new tool. I figured that was fair.

The first statement I checked showed the transfer started in March 2016. I went back further. Nothing before that. Just this new account at a branch across town.

The name on it was only Frank’s. No joint anything.

I called the main bank the next morning. The woman on the phone said she couldn’t tell me a thing because my name wasn’t on the account. I asked her what I was supposed to do with that. She said she was sorry and hung up.

That afternoon I drove to the other branch with our marriage certificate in my purse. I told the manager I needed to see the balance. She looked at the certificate for a long minute, then at me, then asked if I was sure. I told her I had balanced our books for thirty six years and I was sure.

She turned the monitor around. The balance sat at seventy eight thousand four hundred and twelve dollars.

I stared at the number. My hands felt cold on the counter.

I drove home slower than usual. Frank was in the garage working on the lawn mower. I stood in the doorway and waited until he looked up.

“There’s an account with your name on it,” I said. “Seventy eight thousand dollars in it.”

He set the wrench down. He didn’t ask how I knew.

“I started it eight years ago,” he said.

I waited. He wiped his hands on a rag.

“It’s for Tommy,” he said.

I had to ask twice who Tommy was.

Frank kept looking at the floor. “He’s twenty six now. His mother passed and he needed help with rent and then the truck.”

I sat down on the step because my legs didn’t feel steady. Frank and I never had kids. He always said he was fine with that. I never pushed.

“How long have you known about him?” I asked.

“Since before we got married,” Frank said. “I didn’t think it mattered then.”

I thought about every Friday when he handed me that check. I thought about the years I skipped new clothes so we could fix the roof. All that time the money was leaving anyway.