Friday afternoon, I got in the car, drove to the address I had looked up the night before, and parked across the street just as Genes truck pulled in, and when I saw the woman he had been paying every week come out to meet him, and saw where they went, I had to grip the wheel, because it was nothing I feared.
The woman came out pushing a wheelchair, and in it sat a frail old man, and Gene went to him and shook his hand with great tenderness.
The weekly payments to the same woman every Friday were not going to a secret sweetheart, they were paying for the care of Genes old baseball coach, the man who mentored him as a boy, now elderly and poor, and the woman was the coachs home health aide.
Gene, who coached Little League for thirty seasons, had once been a poor kid himself, and an old coach had taken him under his wing, believed in him, changed the whole course of his life. That coach was old now, and broke, and alone, unable to afford the care he needed.
And my Gene, quietly, had been paying for it. Every Friday, he sent money to the mans home health aide, the woman in the Venmo payments, to make sure the coach who once saved him could live his last years in dignity and comfort. And every Friday, Gene drove over to visit him, to sit with him, to thank him, still.
The reason for the payments, the same name, the same amount, every Friday, was a grown mans faithful love for the mentor who made him who he was.
I got out of my car, and Gene saw me, and when he understood I had feared the worst, he laughed and took my hand and walked me over and introduced me to Coach, a sweet old man whose eyes lit up talking about the boy Gene used to be.
Coach said, your husband is the finest man I ever coached, and not because of baseball. Because he never forgot where he came from, or the people who helped him. Not many do.
I wept on that sidewalk. My husband, who I feared was betraying me, had been quietly caring for the old man who once saved him.
I do not doubt my Gene anymore. I visit Coach with him now, every Friday, and we make sure that good old man is cared for and loved in his final years.
My grandson told me to check the Venmo. It turned out to be my husband taking care of the coach who made him a man. Genes payments every Friday were not betrayal. They were gratitude, faithful and lifelong. I drove there fearing the worst. I found my husband being exactly the man Coach always knew he was. I have never been prouder to be his wife.