Chapter 5 - The Money Claire Thought Cancer Had Taken
Claire had stopped checking the joint savings account months earlier.
Derek handled bills.
That arrangement once made sense.
Cancer changed her concentration. Medications made numbers swim. Treatment days left her exhausted.
When Rebecca asked for basic financial records, Claire logged in.
She stared at the balance.
$14,822.
There had been almost $96,000 the previous January.
“Medical bills?” Walter asked.
Claire shook her head.
They had good employer-sponsored insurance through Derek’s engineering firm, plus a significant deductible but nothing close to eighty thousand dollars.
Rebecca asked Claire to download statements.
The withdrawals had occurred gradually.
$6,000.
$8,500.
$4,200.
Repeated transfers into an account ending in 7719.
Claire did not recognize it.
Derek had once mentioned creating a separate account for estimated medical expenses.
She assumed that was it.
Rebecca did not assume anything.
She requested formal financial disclosures as part of Claire’s separation planning.
Claire hated how quickly marriage became paperwork.
Then she found something worse.
Her retirement account had a $28,000 loan against it.
“I never took this.”
Walter looked at the screen.
“Can he do that?”
“Not without something.”
Claire accessed archived emails.
There it was.
A digital authorization from five months earlier.
Signed through her email address.
On a date she had spent almost twelve hours receiving chemotherapy.
Claire remembered Derek taking her phone during treatment because she kept falling asleep.
“He said he was answering messages for me.”
Rebecca’s expression tightened.
“Don’t accuse him of forgery yet.”
Claire nodded.
“But preserve this.”
That evening Derek texted:
You’re turning your father against me because you’re scared.
Claire stared at the words.
For months she had believed cancer was consuming everything.
Her strength.
Her hair.
Her plans.
May you like
Her marriage.
Now she was beginning to wonder how much Derek had taken and simply allowed the disease to receive the blame.
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