Dont you dare open that, Andrew hissed, his hand tight on my wrist under the table.
Mr. Callahan looked at the hand. Then he looked at me. Mrs. Price, he said evenly. Should I open this?
Please, I said. Andrew let go of my wrist.
Callahan opened the envelope and took out three pages. The first was our family tax return. The second was a company expense report with Andrews signature at the bottom. The third was a spreadsheet I had built myself, two columns highlighted in yellow, lined up side by side.
He read all three without a word. His wife stopped smiling. The steakhouse felt very large and very quiet.
Then he set down his wine glass. Andrew, he said. How long have you been billing the company for expenses that show up as deposits in your personal account?
Because that was the yellow. Column one, what Andrew had charged the company. Travel. Client dinners. A conference in Dallas that, according to our tax return, he had never attended. Column two, the matching deposits into the account he thought I could not see.
Eleven thousand dollars, over two years. Small enough each time to miss. Large enough together to end a career.
He had spent four years telling me I could not balance a checkbook, and it took me fifteen minutes to balance his.
I had not gone looking to destroy him. I had gone looking because he told me, one too many times, that I contributed nothing. I am a senior accountant. Numbers are how I contribute. He had simply forgotten what he married.
Andrew stood up so fast his chair scraped. This is insane. She is lying. She has not worked in years.
The numbers worked just fine, Callahan said. They always do.
He folded the pages and put them in his jacket. You will hear from the firm Monday. And Mrs. Price. He turned to me. We lost a very good accountant four years ago, I am told. If you are ever looking to come back to work, I would like to be the first call.
I was.
Andrew did not make vice president. He did not keep his job. The firm handled it quietly, the way firms do, with lawyers and a settlement and a resignation letter.
I went back to work that spring. My own desk. My own name on the door. My own paycheck, in an account only I can see.
The divorce was simple. I did the math myself.
My daughters come to my office sometimes, after school, and spin in my chair, and watch me do the thing their father spent four years telling me I could not do.
I still make casseroles on Sundays. Turns out a person can contribute both.