Chapter 12 - WHAT DEAN WAS REALLY PROTECTING
The first time I saw Dean after the bathroom was in a conference room at the credit union.
Our attorneys were there.
So was the fraud investigator.
I chose the chair farthest from him.
Dean looked smaller than I remembered.
Not remorseful.
Contained.
The investigator asked whether I had authorized the HELOC.
“No.”
Dean leaned forward.
“She knew the business needed money.”
“That wasn’t the question,” I said.
His lawyer touched his arm.
Dean ignored him.
“You benefited from my income for eleven years.”
“And that gave you permission to forge my name?”
“I did what I had to do.”
There it was.
Not denial.
Justification.
Mom sat two chairs away.
Dean finally looked at her.
“You begged me.”
“I did.”
“You said Rachel could never know.”
Mom’s face tightened.
“I said I was ashamed. I didn’t tell you to steal from her.”
“You gave me everything I needed.”
“And you kept taking after my money was covered.”
Dean’s jaw shifted.
The investigator placed the transaction schedule on the table.
The first draw had addressed Mom’s loss.
The second and third had financed Dean.
He stared at it without speaking.
I asked the question I had carried since the mirror.
“Why did you start telling people I was cheating?”
Dean looked directly at me.
For a moment, I saw the man I had married.
Then I saw the man he had become trying to preserve him.
“Because you were pulling away.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I started checking the accounts.”
“That’s what I mean.”
The answer was so simple it made my skin cold.
He did not fear losing my love first.
He feared losing my compliance.
“If people thought you were leaving me for someone else,” he said, “they’d understand why I had to protect the business.”
“Protect it from what?”
“You.”
I almost laughed.
Instead I said, “You put my house into debt, used my family to hide it, built a story that I was unfaithful, and then hurt me when I found the statement.”
Dean’s eyes moved toward the door.
“I was trying to keep everything together.”
Mom spoke before I could.
“No. You were trying to stay in charge of what everybody knew.”
Dean turned on her.
“And you weren’t?”
Mom flinched.
That was the first honest thing he had said.
They had both protected the same thing.
May you like
Control over the story.
Only one of them had finally decided to give it up.
