Page 56 of Wall

“He’s my husband.”

Miss Janice’s eyes go round. “You lose your ring, too?”

I wiggle my bare fingers. My ring is in my jewelry box. “We’ve been separated awhile.”

“How long is awhile?”

“Four years.”

“Glory day. There’s a story there.”

“We…ran into a rough patch. I kicked him out. He left and stayed gone. But he never sent me papers, and I didn’t either.”

“You were young.”

“Not that young.”

“Young.” Miss Janice sniffs. “So what did he do? Was he unfaithful?”

My face heats. I don’t have to say anything.

“He’s the fast type, eh?”

The idea makes me smile. “John? No. He’s a homebody, really. He likes what he likes—fishing, riding, hunting, lifting.Eating. But I wouldn’t call him fast.”

“So what happened?” Miss Janice twists her ring. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, dear, but I’ve got good ears for listening. Well, the right one’s good. The left one, not so much.”

“You know what, Miss Janice? It’s hard to say. We were going through a hard time. Both of us. We weren’t talking much. Just trying to get through the day, you know? But I never thought—never—that he’d do that. I’d have bet anyone a million bucks he’d never cheat. And I was wrong.”

The awful pain that’d gotten dull these past few weeks flashes hot and sharp in my brain. What if it never goes away? What if somehow John and I stay together, and every night he’s a few minutes late, I still feel this way?

And I can hear my mother in my head.Well, shouldn’t you have thought about that before you rushed off halfcocked like you always do?

“What does he say for himself?”

I grimace. “We talked about it once. A little. I still don’t get it. I know I should talk to him.”

Miss Janice laughs. “Yes. You should. I will say, though…Did I ever tell you about Lloyd and the savings account?”

“I can’t say that you did.”

“Well, Lloyd was in charge of the finances. I got an allowance for household expenses, and that was that. I could make a penny squeal, let me tell you.”

I can’t imagine, but it was a different time. My dad handles the money, too. Makes my mother ask for it every month.

“Well, when Lloyd died, come to find out, he had over half a million dollars in a savings account at Pyle National Bank.”

“Holy crap. Half a million?”

“Half a million. We never talked about money, and he never told me about it.”

“What did you do?”

“I was mad as hell at first. Do you know how many coupons I clipped? And store brand cream cheese isawful. And telling my Thomas he couldn’t go do that semester overseas, or he’d have to make a pair of shoes last another year. Terrible.”

“You had no idea?”

“None. I thought we were barely making it all along. I was furious foryears.”

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