The number at the bottom of the last page was six hundred and forty three thousand, two hundred and eleven dollars. Mr. Halvorsen read it aloud in a thin shaking voice, standing in the middle of the Elks Lodge with a gold watch box in one hand and my envelope in the other. Nobody breathed. A hundred and fifty people stood frozen with their drinks halfway to their mouths. Gene had gone the color of oatmeal. Shelly was backing toward the exit, one step at a time, with her purse clutched to her chest like a shield.
Mr. Halvorsen said, “Shelly, do not move.” She stopped. He had a surprising voice for a small old man. It had filled the lodge in 1969 when he announced his first payroll, and it filled it now. He said, “Gene, I trusted you with my crews for thirty eight years. I attended the baptism of your sons. And this is how I find out?” Gene opened his mouth. He said, “Frank, I can explain.” Mr. Halvorsen said, “Please do.” Gene said nothing. Beside the buffet, my younger son started to cry.
I should say how I knew. In 2017, I found the first invoice from Gateway HVAC Supply, and I thought it was a clerical mistake. By the third month, I knew it was not. I traced the post office box to a bank in St. Louis. I traced the account to my husband. I sat at my desk in the office with a cup of cold coffee for an hour, and I decided. I did not tell Frank Halvorsen. I did not confront Gene. I made copies of every page, and I put them in an envelope, and I kept it in my purse for nine years.
The woman who keeps the books knows where every dollar has gone, and sooner or later she will decide to read them aloud.
I had told myself that I was waiting for the right moment. That was a lie I told for a very long time. What I was waiting for, I think now, was the courage to be done. A woman who has been married for forty one years does not leave without a reason, and I had every reason, and I did not use any of them. I kept the books. I kept the house. I made his coffee in the morning. And in the evenings, when he went out for golf, I sat in the kitchen with the envelope on my knees, thinking I would give him one more year.
Mr. Halvorsen turned to the back of the room. He raised one hand. A tall man in a gray suit, who had been standing quietly by the coat rack, stepped forward and flashed a badge. I had not noticed him before. Mr. Halvorsen said, “This is Detective Maloney. I asked him to come tonight, because Barbara called me on Thursday. She did not tell me why. She only asked me to have someone here who could take a statement.” He looked at me. His eyes were wet. “She said, Frank, I am going to hand you something terrible.”
I had called him on Thursday. I had sat in my car outside the lodge, in the rain, and told him that I wanted to show him a set of books. I said I would explain on Saturday. I did not say it was about Gene. I said only that I would be wearing my navy dress. He had said, in his courteous old way, that he looked forward to it. I did not tell him that I had spent the entire week writing a letter to my husband that I never finished. It is in the drawer of the nightstand still.
The detective took Gene to the side of the room. Shelly was with him. They both sat down in plastic chairs, under the banner for the Christmas drive, and neither said a word. The party broke up quietly. Guests drifted to the door, and some came to me on the way out and pressed my hand. Mrs. Kolb from the church put her arms around me and whispered that she had known for years. My son drove me home. He sat in the kitchen with me until two in the morning, and we ate leftover buffet cake with our fingers.
Gene was charged with embezzlement, wire fraud, and conspiracy. Shelly was charged with the same. The pension, which had been the pride of his old age, was frozen, then forfeited, as part of the restitution. The company recovered most of the money. I testified at the trial for three days. When the defense lawyer asked me how I could do this to a man I had been married to for forty one years, I said, “Sir, I did not do it. He did. I only kept the numbers.” The courtroom was very quiet.
Gene received twelve years. Shelly received nine. The divorce, which he had filed with such flourish in a gift bag, was finalized in March. I kept the house on Westlawn, and my own pension, and a settlement from the company. And Frank Halvorsen, who is seventy eight and has no children of his own, came to my kitchen one afternoon with a bag of donuts and a very serious face. He said, “Barbara, I am going to sell the business. I want you to run it.” I laughed. He did not.
I am the chief financial officer of Prairie State Mechanical now. I sit in the same office I sat in for forty one years, in the same chair, with a new nameplate and a window. My oldest son is the service manager. On Fridays, Frank comes in at noon and we have lunch at my desk, sandwiches from the deli on Main, and we look at the numbers together. They always add up. It is the quietest kind of happiness, and I did not know I was allowed to have it.