“Did you check the joint account today?” I asked, setting my keys down.
“Just the usual stuff,” he said, not looking up from a circular.
“There is a three hundred dollar charge to a storage facility on Capital Boulevard,” I said, standing near the refrigerator. “Do you know what that is?”
Eric cleared his throat and finally set his phone face down on the counter. “It is for old lawn equipment. I needed a place for the riding mower and the leaf blower before the frost hits.”
“The lawn equipment is currently in our garage,” I said. “And the riding mower has been broken since June.”
“I am planning to get it fixed,” he said, his voice rising slightly. “I needed the garage space cleared out.”
“Cleared out for what, Eric?”
He did not answer. He grabbed the pile of opened circulars and stood up, walking toward the recycling bin near the pantry. As he lifted the papers, a small white slip of paper slid out from the stack and fluttered onto the gray granite counter.
I reached out and caught it before it could drift to the floor. It was a printed storage receipt, dated two days ago, showing a balance of zero.
My eyes ran down the thermal paper to the primary contact line. Eric’s name was printed in capital letters, and right beneath it, on the line marked for authorized access, was Melissa’s signature.
Diane’s silver bracelets clinked against the cold granite counter, a sharp, rhythmic sound that filled the kitchen. She was rubbing a gray flannel cloth over her mother’s silver butter dish, her movements small and precise.
I zipped my canvas lunch bag and pulled the black strap tight, trying to focus on the hum of the silver refrigerator behind me. The kitchen granite had cold gray veins that seemed wider in the thin morning light.
“Melissa will need her own access,” Diane said, setting a brass key on a heavy silver key ring next to my car keys.
The key ring had a small blue plastic tag with the word *Front* written in Eric’s neat block handwriting. It sat on the counter between us, catching the glare from the overhead light.
