Every statement showed a regular deposit of five hundred dollars, made on the first of every month, at a branch bank three towns over in Terre Haute. The total balance at the bottom of the final sheet was exactly forty-one thousand two hundred dollars.
Emily had kept this account entirely separate from our joint household ledger. She had built this wall of cash month by month, dollar by dollar, while we sat in the evening and talked about my history classes.
I picked up one of the deposit slips. It was filled out in Emily’s hand, dated the autumn after we were married. She had been saving the exact amount stolen, but she had kept it in the dark.
Did she think a stack of cash could wash away what she had done to Sarah?
I looked at the dates on the statements. The deposits had continued right up until the month she went into the hospital.
