The password was taped under the kitchen drawer organizer. Same handwriting my ex uses for grocery lists. Tyler had apparently been sending money out of that account for weeks and nobody noticed because the withdrawals stayed under five hundred dollars each time.
My ex finally told me the rest after Tyler locked himself in the bathroom. About two months earlier Tyler stopped going to classes almost completely. He was still leaving the house every morning with his backpack and work uniform, but he’d been driving down to Springfield instead. My ex thought he was just embarrassed about failing a semester until the bank started calling about overdraft notices tied to the tuition refund account.
I asked where the money went.
He said, “A woman.”
Not a girlfriend. A forty-one-year-old woman from one of those recovery groups Tyler started attending after his panic attacks last winter. She had three kids, an eviction notice, and apparently kept telling Tyler she was about to lose custody unless somebody helped her. My ex showed me printed Cash App receipts rubber-banded together. Rent. Utilities. A transmission repair. Four hundred dollars for “school clothes.”
The part that made me feel sick was the dates. Tyler emptied his college account the same week he told me not to come visit campus because he was “too busy adjusting.”
I drove home around midnight. Tyler called three times but I didn’t answer. Then around one in the morning my younger sister texted me a screenshot from Facebook.
The woman had posted photos from a weekend trip at Seven Feathers Casino. Tyler was in the background holding her youngest kid near the buffet sign. The timestamp said Saturday, 9:14 PM, Canyonville, Oregon.