Chapter 2 - The Silence Before the Storm
The blue light of my laptop screen cast a sharp, cold shadow across the kitchen table. Outside, the crickets sang their late-summer song, oblivious to the quiet nuclear detonation that had just occurred in my bank account. Forty thousand dollars. Gone from the secondary holding account with three simple keystrokes. It hadn't vanished into thin air; it had snapped back into a high-yield account in my and Neil’s name, locked behind double-authentication protocols that Trisha didn't even know existed.
My phone buzzed again. Not a call, just a chime.
Trisha: Seriously. The portal says 'Account Invalid/Restricted.' I’m standing in the lobby of the admissions office trying to pay my term deposit before midnight or they drop my classes. Call me.
I didn’t call. I didn't text back. I picked up the phone, turned the volume down until the vibration was barely a dull thrum against the wood, and laid it face down.
Neil walked into the kitchen from the hallway. He had just finished checking on Hannah upstairs. He was barefoot, wearing a faded gray t-shirt and the quiet, rock-solid expression I had fallen in love with ten years ago. He poured himself a glass of water from the fridge and leaned against the counter, his eyes fixed on my face.
"You did it?" he asked. His voice wasn’t celebratory, nor was it timid. It had the heavy, sober weight of a man who had watched his wife carry a stone up a mountain for four years only to realize the person sitting at the summit was waiting to push her off.
"I did it," I said. My voice was surprisingly steady. My hands, resting on either side of the open laptop, weren't shaking anymore. The adrenaline had burned through, leaving behind a sharp, clean clarity. "Forty grand. Moved over to our joint reserve. If she tries to run the debit authorization tonight, it’ll bounce harder than a rubber ball off brick."
Neil took a slow sip of water. "Your mom is going to wake us up by sunrise. You know that, right? Trisha doesn't solve her own panic attacks; she delegates them to Gloria."
"Let her," I said. I closed the laptop lid with a soft, final thunk. "For four years, Trisha has treated my savings account like an ATM with no PIN and no daily limit. She cried about her 'artistic calling' in London. She cried about the rent in Shoreditch. She cried because the local theater company in Chicago cast her as an understudy instead of the lead. And every single time, I felt guilty because I have a steady job, a house with a mortgage that actually gets paid, and a husband who knows how to change the oil in his own truck."
I stood up, walking over to join him by the counter.
"She stole from Hannah," I whispered, the rage flaring up again, hot and bright behind my ribs. "She didn't just borrow it. She bullied a seven-year-old child out of birthday money and weed-pulling tips—money that had little blue sticky notes under the lid with Hannah’s own crooked handwriting—and then she stood in my parents' backyard handing out brand-new designer sneakers to Logan like some kind of neighborhood philanthropist."
"It was sick," Neil agreed quietly. He set his glass down and pulled me against his chest. I let my forehead rest against his shoulder, breathing in the scent of laundry detergent and pine soap. "Stealing from a kid is a whole different brand of trash. You did the right thing, Andrea. Don't let your mom or anyone else make you feel like the bad guy here."
"Oh, they're going to try," I murmured against his shirt. "Lord, they are going to try."
The phone lit up again on the table. A preview notification popped across the dark glass: Mom: Andrea, answer your phone right now. Trisha is hysterical. What did you do to her tuition fund?
I didn't touch it. I turned the screen completely off.
"Let’s go to bed," I said. "We have school in the morning. And Hannah needs to wake up knowing her money wasn't just magic dust that adults can swipe whenever they feel like playing big shot."
We went upstairs. In the hallway, the door to Hannah’s room was cracked open two inches. A faint, warm glow spilled from her nightlight—a little ceramic rabbit that cast long ears across the ceiling. We crept inside. Hannah was curled on her side, still wearing the pale yellow dress she’d refused to change out of until she fell asleep. Her small hand was tucked under her pillow. Even in her sleep, her fingers were slightly curved, as if she were still clutching the empty air where her jar used to be.
Neil gently pulled the light quilt up over her shoulders. He leaned down and kissed the crown of her head.
May you like
"We're getting that jar back," Neil whispered fiercely. "Even if I have to walk into Trisha’s apartment and take it out of her kitchen counter myself."
"No," I whispered back, a slow, grim idea beginning to take shape in the dark corners of my mind. "We aren't breaking in. We're going to invite ourselves over."
