The Account Review Put A Price On His Convenient Explanations

I read Dana's email twice.

The apartment deposit was $3,200. Haris had approved it with a reply sent from his business account.

Wish I were there tonight. Soon we won't have to hide.

Below that was a receipt paid from Clear Current's account.

For weeks, I had been trying to prove where our money went. Now the answer had a kitchen, a bedroom, and two names on a lease.

Ruth let me sit without talking.

Finally, I asked, “Does this change the money case?”

“It helps explain certain payments. The contracts and transfers still have to do their own work.”

“And the marriage?”

“That's your choice.”

I went outside and called Haris.

“How long?”

He knew what I meant.

“Samina, our marriage has been difficult.”

“How long?”

“A year.”

I watched a man sweep leaves from his storefront into a dustpan.

“You brought her to our table.”

“Please don't turn this into a scene.”

There it was again. He could do a thing in private and call my answer the scene.

“Speak to Ruth about the company,” I said. “I'll have a separate lawyer contact yours about the divorce.”

I ended the call before he could give me instructions.

Dana and Clear Current were added to the business case. Through their lawyers, the account records arrived under the court's process. Martin matched them against the four clients' receipts and the lodge payment.

He used a wide sheet with one row for each dollar group.

“Fifty-six thousand eight hundred in customer deposits,” he said. “Twenty-two thousand five hundred for the tank. Seventy-nine thousand three hundred received.”

“How much is left?”

“Thirty-one thousand eight hundred in Clear Current's account at the date of this statement.”

“And the rest?”

“Forty-seven thousand five hundred went to personal expenses. Card payments, travel, apartment costs. The supporting records identify the recipients.”

He had not counted the same money twice. He had followed it until each line ended.

“What about the money already spent?” I asked.

“The report shows the loss,” he said. “Collecting it is another step.”

I appreciated the plain answer. A number on paper could tell the truth without turning into cash. Ruth would still have to seek repayment, and the court would still have to decide what the records supported. I wrote that down beside the total.

The court later ordered that the remaining $31,800 be held in escrow while the claims were resolved. Dana's lawyer agreed to the transfer after reviewing the records.

I expected relief when I heard that.

Instead, I went to the workshop and cried beside an empty bucket.

We had been asking vendors for more time while they paid for trips. I had patched my work boots with glue. Our clients had believed their tanks were already being built.

Celeste found me there when she brought a copy of her signed statement.

“The bank lobby needs its filter changed,” she said.

I wiped my face.

“I'll arrange someone.”

“I was hoping for the person who built it.”

“You still want me there?”

She looked almost annoyed.

“Samina. The fish haven't filed a complaint.”

We sat on two upturned crates. I told her about Dana, the apartment, and the forty-seven thousand five hundred dollars.

“I feel stupid,” I said.

“You feel betrayed. They're different costs.”

I turned over a grocery receipt in my pocket. Its back was blank.

For once, I didn't know what to draw.

At the next hearing, Haris claimed my advances had been gifts to help our household.

His lawyer asked whether I had ever called the money a family investment.

“At supper, probably,” I said. “In the signed papers, it was three loans to the company.”

“You trusted your husband to manage repayment?”

“Yes.”

“So he had broad freedom?”

“To manage the business. The notes didn't say he could change my loan into a gift.”

Ruth submitted the repayment records. Each memo said loan. Celeste confirmed how the bank had matched the transfers to the schedule in its old file.

The judge asked Haris why his own books listed a debt to me.

“That was for accounting,” he said.

“Yes,” the judge replied. “That's why we're reading it.”

I kept my hands still in my lap.

Ruth also presented the examiner's report and my statement denying the sale approval and release. Haris's lawyer asked for time to respond in writing. The judge set a deadline and kept the transfer restrictions in place.

By then, I understood patience differently. It did not mean waiting for Haris to become fair. It meant letting a record become complete.

That evening, Ben from the lodge called me directly.

“Someone just asked for access to your tank,” he said. “A woman says she's collecting it tonight, and she has a letter with your name.”