I had been standing on the corner of Taylor Boulevard and Longest Avenue for twenty-six minutes when the drizzle stopped being a drizzle. The TARC bus line 23 was not coming. My phone had died halfway through my shift, and the side button made a hollow click under my thumb. A child's pink sneaker floated in the gutter, spinning in circles. That was the kind of day it was.
A black BMW X5 rolled through the water and stopped a few feet from the shelter. The window dropped. Nate sat behind the wheel. My ex-husband.
He didn't speak at first. He looked at my soaked coat, the grocery bags in my hands, the mascara running down my face. Then he said, "Dana. Get in."
I opened my mouth to say no. A gust blew rain into my eyes. I yanked the door handle and climbed in.
The cab smelled like leather and coffee from the cup holder. The seat heater was already on. It was exactly the car we used to fight about. He wanted a used Toyota once we bought a house. I wanted something like this.
He asked where I lived now. I gave him the address of a studio across from a strip mall on Preston. He didn't react.
"How's life?" he asked.
I looked out the window at a faded gray Mazda parked outside a payday-loan store. It sat low on the rear tires. I knew that car. It belonged to Harrison, the man I'd left Nate for.
"Life's fine," I said.
"Great."
At the red light I turned to him. "You have a new car."
"Two years old."
"I heard you opened a shop."
"Two shops. Second one goes live in three weeks."
I ran a wet thumb over the stitching on the grocery bag. "Congratulations."
He dropped me outside my building. The rain had eased to a fine mist. He said, "Take care of yourself, Dana." Then he drove off. I stood on the sidewalk with my key in my hand while the taillights disappeared down Taylor.
Nate and I had been married nine years. He worked at a tire and brake shop in the South End. I worked the front desk at a family medical practice. We rented a two-bedroom on a street with tilting sidewalks. On Saturdays we looked at starter houses in Okolona and Shively. We had $12,000 in a savings account and a list on the fridge under a magnet from a dentist's office: roof, water heater, kitchen sink.
I got tired. I compared him to men I saw online—guys on boats, guys with watches at steakhouses. Then Harrison came into the clinic for a physical. Forty-six, three restaurants, a black Mercedes S-class, a voice that made every idea sound like a sure thing. He asked me to coffee. I said I was married. He said, "I know." He told me I deserved a life that didn't involve waiting on a water heater.
I thought that was the smartest thing I'd ever heard.
When I told Nate, he didn't yell. He sat on the edge of the couch with the remote in his hand and asked, "You're sure?"
I said yes. He helped carry my suitcase to the taxi. As the cab drove off, he stood in the doorway with the porch light off. I didn't look back.
The first year with Harrison was good. He rented a condo downtown with floor-to-ceiling windows for $3,400 a month. We drove to Nashville, Charleston, Scottsdale. He bought me a necklace I later sold for $600. Then the first restaurant closed because the landlord tripled the lease. The second lost its liquor license over unpaid taxes. By the third, he had sold the Mercedes and started driving that gray Mazda with the duct tape on the side mirror.
He said, "Just temporary."
Six months later, he came home at one in the morning and said the bank was taking the condo.
I moved into a studio near Churchill Downs. The kitchen faucet dripped in three-second intervals. The water heater made a sound like a man clearing his throat. I went back to the medical office. I bought groceries by the sale tag.
That night after the bus stop, I sat on the edge of my bed and typed Nate's name into my phone. His shop page had forty-one reviews. There was a photo of him under a sign that said "Callan Auto Works." Another from a local business magazine. Another from a dock on Lake Michigan. I shut the phone off. The neighbor's hound started barking when the streetlight came on.
Six months later, Nate knocked on my door with a blue manila folder under his arm. He looked older. I made coffee. He sat at my table and said, "My brother Tyler got taken."
Tyler had put $85,000—his 401(k) plus a small inheritance—into a company that leased restaurant equipment. The company had a website, a lawyer, an office on Shelbyville Road. The contract looked real. The equipment did not exist. The money went to a man named Vincent Rackley.
I had a paralegal certificate by then. I opened the folder and found the wire confirmation. The money moved on March 2. The supplemental agreement was signed March 3. I tapped the page. "This is backward. He signed after the money was gone."
Nate leaned over. "Does that help?"
"A lawyer can use it."
We hired a woman in a small office on Fourth Street. Her desk had a dead bonsai tree and a plastic cup full of paper clips. She said the signature issue was enough to file.
While we worked, Harrison called me again. First he wanted $300 for food. I sent nothing. Then he wanted my signature on a lease application so he could get a job at a restaurant supplier. I said no. His voice went thin. "You act like I planned to lose everything."
I said, "You planned nothing. That's the problem."
The lawyer found that Vincent Rackley had been a partner of Harrison's in one of the early restaurant deals. Nate asked if Harrison was involved. I sat with my coffee. "He knew Rackley. I don't think he knew about the fake equipment." But he knew enough to keep quiet when other people were writing checks.
The case took eleven months. Tyler got back $47,500 of the $85,000. At the lawyer's office, Nate signed the settlement check. I signed an affidavit as a witness. On the sidewalk outside, he said, "I'm getting married in the spring."
I kept my face still. "Good."
"Her name's Renee. She teaches third grade."
"I'm happy for you."
Then I walked to my car and sat in it until the parking lot emptied.
A month later, a letter came from the bankruptcy trustee for Harrison's old restaurant group. It said I was listed as a creditor. I had transferred Harrison $8,250 over the five months before he lost everything. The form had a box for "Proof of Claim" and a deadline at the end of the week.
I didn't cry. I went to the kitchen drawer and took out a folder of bank statements. I printed every transfer: $1,200 on February 4, $800 on February 19, $2,000 on March 3, $1,750 on April 7, $1,000 on May 12, $1,500 on June 2. That added up to $8,250.
I filled out the form in black ink. I drove to the Jefferson County Courthouse and got there at 3:32 p.m. The clerk took the envelope, checked the top copy, and stamped it. "Filed," she said.
Two weeks later, Harrison called from a blocked number while I sat at the light at Preston and Eastern Parkway. "You actually filed a claim against me?"
I reached over and tapped the receipt on the dashboard. "Eight thousand two hundred fifty. That's what I transferred. It's all in the claim."
"That was a gift."
"Then the trustee will decide that."
He exhaled. "You couldn't just let it go?"
I said, "No."
Then I ended the call. The light turned green.
