The Accountant Asked Me A Question My Husband Tried To Answer

The buyer's email stayed unanswered while I slept beside Morton.

I wanted one night in which he did not know what I knew.

At breakfast, I said I had an appointment about the transfer. He put on his coat before I finished speaking.

“I'll explain the numbers,” he said.

Ada met us in her office near Central Square. With her was Leila Sayegh, a fifty-six-year-old Lebanese American forensic accountant. Leila wore a dark green cardigan and carried a plain canvas bag heavy with folders.

Her voice was gentle enough that I leaned forward to hear it.

“Ruth, where do your retirement payments go?”

Morton opened his folder. “We have several arrangements.”

Leila kept her eyes on me.

“I asked Ruth.”

He gave a little laugh.

“She doesn't handle the monthly summaries.”

“Then we'll get the statements,” Leila said. “Ruth, would you like to answer?”

“Our pensions go into joint checking. We also have a savings certificate. The last balance I saw was over two hundred thousand dollars.”

Morton shut his folder.

“It's committed.”

“To whom?” Leila asked.

“Future needs.”

“That is different from spent.”

Ada pushed the unsigned transfer aside.

“Morton, Ruth is my client. I need to speak with her alone.”

“We've been married twenty-eight years.”

“Then you know where the waiting room is.”

After he left, I placed my phone on Ada's desk. She read the buyer's email and the sale listing without speaking.

“Did you authorize a sale?”

“No.”

“Did you ever give Morton broad power to sign for you?”

“No.”

She wrote those answers down.

Leila gave me a blank sheet for my own questions. I wrote the certificate's name at the top. Nobody reached over to correct my spelling or tell me which question mattered first.

Her assistant brought a thick packet from the records room. Across its closed flap were my signature, Ada's initials, and a dated seal from the previous January.

Ada photographed it before she opened it.

Inside lay my register, copies of eighteen purchase bills, and the limited pickup terms Morton had signed. Each page had a number. Each lens had its own drawing.

Leila turned to the entry ending in 417.

“You paid $3,900 in 1991.”

“The edge needed work.”

“And this sale listing says $24,600.”

“The edge no longer needed work.”

She smiled, then set two sheets side by side.

“We can prove what you owned and what you allowed. We still need to prove where the money went.”

I answered the buyer's email from Ada's office. His name was Peter Wynn. He had purchased two lenses and wanted advice about shipping one for cleaning. He had attached the authorization supplied by Pine Stair.

The signature looked like mine at first glance.

It even had the small break in the F from an old pen that used to skip.

“That's from my retirement dinner letter,” I said. “Morton scanned it for the invitations.”

Ada asked me to send her that letter. She said a copied shape was a lead, not yet a complete finding.

I liked her for saying that.

We went to the credit union after lunch. I used my own identification and requested records for our joint accounts.

The certificate held $212,480. Its existing terms required both our signatures for an early withdrawal. Nobody had touched it.

Joint checking was another matter. Two transfers, $6,100 and $3,500, had paid a card in Morton's name. Our groceries and heating bills were current.

Leila read the statements at my kitchen table while Morton stayed in his study.

“The debt total may be real,” she said. “But this sheet doesn't show that you owe it.”

“He said retirement took our savings.”

“Your statement says it didn't.”

The words were small. They gave me room to breathe.

I pulled an envelope from my desk. For ten months I had kept the shipping slips Morton left beside the back door. He had asked me to record which cases went out. Apparently he had forgotten that records could be read twice.

Five names appeared on the slips. Peter had bought two lenses. A club in Vermont had taken two. Three other people had taken one each.

With Ada's help, I wrote to all five buyers. I asked them to compare serial numbers, share their invoices, and bring or send photographs of the glass. I made no demand for its return.

“Some buyers may have rights of their own,” Ada warned. “We will establish the facts before choosing a remedy.”

Morton appeared in the doorway as I sent the last invitation.

“You're making a private problem public.”

“I'm asking where my lenses are.”

He put an envelope beside Leila's bag.

Inside was a demand from his lawyer: I was to sign the transfer within forty-eight hours or face a claim that I had hidden valuable marital property.