“What? Oh, yeah.” He was still digesting her words about Hadley.

Frankie’s announcement wasn’t exactly groundbreaking. Ruthie and Rachel stated that they’d known since Frankie was eleven, and Bill and Barb admitted that they had suspected but had hoped to be wrong, because it could carry some “difficult consequences.”

“What are y’all talking about?” Frankie said fondly. “I’m a Yankee now. There’s lots of us lesbians up north. We’re all the rage.” This got a laugh, and Bill came over and kissed his youngest and told her they all loved her no matter what.

“You’ll look after her, won’t you, Jack?” Barbara asked.

“Of course,” Jack said. He liked Frankie a lot. “Not that she needs looking after, but we’re just an hour away from Cornell.”

“Jack and I are about ready to start a family,” Hadley announced.

He looked at her in surprise. Since that first conversation after the honeymoon, the subject of kids hadn’t been brought up. But the conversation turned to babies and pregnancy, and when Jack looked across the table at Frankie, she said nothing. Just cocked an eyebrow, and it dawned on Jack that maybe his wife was, in some weird way, trying to steal Frankie’s thunder and turn the attention to her.

Hadley seemed a little blue at Christmastime, so Jack surprised her with a trip to Manhattan, earning a lot of happy shrieks and kisses (and the wrath of his grandmother and Mrs. J.). They saw a show, stayed in a nice hotel (though not in a suite this time), went skating at Rockefeller Center, Hadley clutching his arm and giggling as she wobbled and skidded.

Though she paused meaningfully in front of Tiffany’s, Jack didn’t take the bait; he’d already bought her some very nice earrings in Manningsport and arranged this trip. He wasn’t about to break the budget just for a turquoise box. She didn’t seem to mind, and took his hand as they walked down Fifth Avenue.

When they got back home, she seemed happier. The bumps in the road seemed to have smoothed out.

Then, in February, Jack stopped by the post office, which was one of Hadley’s jobs. She had clearly defined ideas about what husbands should do and what wives should. It was a husband’s job to empty the trash and clean up Lazarus’s victims (and Princess Anastasia’s hairballs); it was a wife’s job to make the bed and pick movies. Husband shoveled the snow and scraped cars; wife went to the post office.

But Honor was expecting a package, and she asked him to swing by. He checked his own post office box while he was there.

Inside were three envelopes—one from MasterCard, two from Visa—addressed to John N. Holland IV.

Which was strange, since he only had one credit card, an American Express. He only used it when he had to, preferring to use cash whenever possible.

With a cold feeling in his stomach, he went out to his truck and opened the envelopes, his breath frosting the air.

One bill was for $6,008.01, one for $8,772.15, and one for $4,533.98.

Almost twenty thousand dollars. At 24 percent interest, no less.

The charges went back as far as October...well after he and Hadley had the talk about the red-soled shoes that cost so much. They were from stores that Jack knew only by reputation. Tiffany’s...he remembered how good a sport she was when they didn’t stop in at Christmastime. Guess she could afford to be, since she’d already bought herself a little something. Henri Bendel. Neiman Marcus. Chanel, Coach, Prada, Armani.

Almost twenty thousand dollars on clothes, shoes and handbags.

Jack found that he was sweating.

After the flights back and forth from Savannah...after spending five months’ salary on a Tiffany engagement ring and a diamond wedding band...after paying for the rehearsal dinner for seventy-five people...after the lavish honeymoon, the new couch, after Christmas in New York City, after all the crap she’d bought for the house...they simply couldn’t afford this. Jack had never wanted for money, but this...this was twenty grand he just didn’t have sitting around.

Worse than the money, though, was the lying.

She’d been lying to him for months.

Jaw locked hard, Jack drove home. She was there, sitting at the kitchen table, staring into space, idly stirring sugar into her tea. “Oh, hey, baby!” she said when he came in. “What are you doing home so early?”

He put the bills on the table in front of her. “Explain,” he said tightly.

She was calm; he had to give her that. Stroked Princess Anastasia and said that, yes, she may have “overindulged,” she shouldn’t have kept that from him, but shopping had always been a hobby. She liked nice things; he knew that. She believed in buying quality. No need for him to have kittens.

He made her show him her purchases, and she sighed and complied. Some were right there in their closet, some in her jewelry box, some hidden in the attic.

Shoes galore. Seven new black dresses, each of which looked identical to the last. Four leather jackets. Five winter coats. More makeup than she could use in years. Special soaps and moisturizers and cleansers and creams. Belts and scarves and gloves. Perfume. An eight-ounce bottle of bubble bath that cost $179. “I thought Faith might like that for Christmas,” she said unconvincingly.

“It’s February.”

“So? I like to shop all through the year.”

“Hadley, we can’t afford this!” he barked, and she folded her arms and stared at him patiently.

“Jack, we can. I know you’re on the stingy side, but that wasn’t how I was raised. Where I come from, a man takes care of his woman.”

“By take care of you mean go into debt?”

“Fine. I did a little retail therapy.”

“Maybe you should try the regular kind.”

“That was uncalled for,” she said. “You have no idea how lonely it is for me! You’re at work all day long!”

“People who work for a living generally work all day long, Hadley.”

“Well, you misled me, then! I thought you were—” She stopped abruptly

“You thought I was what?”

Rich. That’s what she’d thought. And he’d always thought he was—he paid his bills, owned a home, bought a new truck every 125,000 miles, didn’t have debt (until now) and put a modest amount in the stock market and savings.

But he wasn’t rich. Not by Hadley’s standards, anyway.

She looked straight ahead. “I thought you’d value our time together more.”

“How do I not value our time together, Hadley?”

“You always put your family first. You spend more time with your father than you do with me.”

“I work with my father.”

“That Mrs. Johnson growls at me any time I even look at her, and your sisters are horrible!”

“My sisters aren’t horrible, Mrs. Johnson growls at everyone and they’re not the reason you spent twenty thousand dollars on clothes.”

“You’re overreacting. I’m sorry you don’t think I’m worth it, after all I do to try to make you happy.” There was a challenge in her eyes.

“This is practically hoarding, and it’s money we don’t have.” He picked up a pair of long white gloves, the kind a woman would wear to...well, hell, he didn’t know. “You forged my signature on three credit card applications, which is illegal, for one, and for two, means your own credit must be shot to hell. You’re hiding things around the house because you know you shouldn’t be spending so much. This is not how a responsible adult behaves.”