The Woman I Helped at the Grocery Store Gave Me a Strange Warning About My Husband

The officer shook his head.

“People change or just show their true face.”

I took a sip of tea. The hot sweet liquid revived me a little and cleared my thoughts.

“What do I do now?”

“Now we will go to the station. You will write a statement.”

“I already called; they will open a file. We will summon your husband for questioning. We will order handwriting analysis on the signature and check the notary.”

“If we prove forgery, and we will prove it, he faces prison time. Fraud on a large scale.”

“Prison?”

I repeated.

It was strange to hear my husband, with whom I had lived half my life, could go to prison.

“And the house? Will it stay mine?”

“Of course. The deal is invalid and the documents are fake. The house is yours and no one will take it away.”

I nodded. We spent several hours at the police station.

I wrote a statement, explained, and answered questions. Officer Pernell described the footprints in detail, the camera recording, and the agency.

The detective, a young woman with a tired face, wrote everything down and nodded.

“We will summon your husband with a subpoena,”

she said at the end.

“When does he return from his trip?”

“He should be back in a week, but I can call him and tell him to come back sooner.”

“No.”

The detective shook her head.

“Do not warn him. Let him think everything is going according to plan. It will be simpler to detain him that way.”

I agreed and walked out onto the street. It was already getting dark.

It was winter, December, and the days were short. Gareth walked me to the bus.

“You hold on,”

he said in parting.

“I know it is hard right now, but you did the right thing. You cannot let things like this slide.”

“Thank you.”

I shook his hand.

“If not for you…”

“Come on, it is my job.”

He waved his hand.

“You should say thank you to that old lady who warned you about the snow. Miracles, honestly.”

I sat on the bus and leaned my forehead against the cold glass. The old lady. How did she know?

I remembered her eyes, piercing and seeing right through. I felt her dry fingers on my sleeve.

Her words:

“When your husband leaves. Do not touch the snow.”

If I had shoveled the snow in the evening as Vernon ordered, the tracks would not have been visible. I would never have known that someone came.

In the morning, new snow would have fallen and everything would have been covered. I would have lived on, not suspecting that the house was being sold out from under me.

In two days, Vernon would have come or called and said the house was sold, or maybe said nothing at all and simply disappeared with the money.

And what could I have done? Proving something would have been almost impossible if the deal had already gone through.

At home, I took off my coat and went into the kitchen. I sat by the window and looked at the yard at the tracks, which were now slightly covered by new snow.

I should have eaten something, but I did not want to. I felt sick from the thoughts, from the betrayal, and from how easily Vernon had decided to deceive me.

Thirty-two years. I cooked for him, washed, and waited for him from trips.

When he was sick I was there, but coldly and so distantly. I thought that was just his character and that work had worn him out.

But he was simply waiting for the moment to get rid of me, sell the house, take the money, and start a new life.

Maybe he had had someone for a long time, another woman who was young and beautiful, and he dreamed of running away to her. His wife was in the way.

Tears rolled down my cheeks. I did not hold them back; I sat and cried, looking into the darkness outside the window.

I cried not for my husband, but for myself and for the lost years. I cried for the fact that life had passed with a man who turned out to be a stranger in the end.

At fifty-eight, I was left alone with a broken heart and betrayal in my memory. The phone rang; Vernon lit up on the screen.

I looked at the call for a long time, then declined it. A minute later, a text came:

“How are things? Got here fine. Talk tomorrow.”

Dry and short as always.

I did not answer. The night passed without sleep.

I lay in bed staring at the ceiling and sorting through everything that had been between us. I was searching for the moment when everything broke, or had it been broken from the start?

Maybe he never loved me. Maybe he married for convenience, needing a house and a mistress of the house.

Now he decided that was enough. It was time to take what he could and leave.

In the morning I got up shattered, with swollen eyes. I looked in the mirror at a stranger’s face: gray strands in my hair, wrinkles, fatigue, and old and ugly.

Maybe that is why he decided to get rid of me? No, enough.

I straightened up, looking at my reflection. Enough pitying myself and making excuses for him.

He is a criminal. He wanted to rob me and leave me on the street, and I will not let him do that.

I got dressed, went down to the kitchen, and made breakfast. I forced myself to eat, then took out the phone.

I called the lawyer Vernon had once hired for paperwork. I explained the situation and asked for help with a divorce.

“Come in tomorrow. We will draw everything up,”

the lawyer said.

“And you are doing the right thing, doing it immediately. Things like this cannot be forgiven.”

I hung up. Divorce. A strange word.

I never thought I would say it. It always seemed that Vernon and I would be together to the end, like his parents and like my parents, for life.

But it turned out simply until the moment he got bored. Two days later, Gareth Pernell called.

“Mrs. Vance, your husband returned. We detained him this morning when he arrived at the depot. Interrogation is underway. Do you want to be present?”

“No,”

I answered firmly.

“I do not want to see him.”

“Understood. Then I will tell you the main thing. He confessed to everything.”

“Says he got into debt. Slot machines. Lost a large sum. Creditors were threatening. Decided to sell the house and thought you wouldn’t find out until it was too late.”

“And what now?”

“The case is going to court. Taking into account the confession and the fact that the deal did not go through, he will likely get probation or a short real term plus compensation to you for moral damages.”

“Okay, thank you.”

I hung up. Slot machines and debts.

So it wasn’t about another woman, and not about me getting old and ugly. It was just money, gambling, and stupidity.

For some reason, that did not make it easier. Maybe another woman would have even been better; at least it would be some human explanation.

But this way he just sold our life for debts.

Spring came unexpectedly early at the end of March. The snow melted in a few days, exposing the blackened earth and the first green shoots of grass.