Page 22 of The Lake Escape
“You said it was taken care of, left hand not talking to the right. Was that a lie?”
“I said I’m working it out with them.” Only one hand went to his temple, so perhaps that was a half-truth. “Obviously, the person I’m in touch with didn’t update the system, but it’s fine. We have until September 15 without a penalty. I’ll call the school tomorrow and get it sorted out.”
Julia’s head sagged forward. Christian was the numbers guy and better at managing the investments. Still, he gave her all the passwords. She could log in to any account of theirs anytime—except for Purdy. Or could she? When had she last checked their bank balances—or their investments, for that matter? She’d been so busy trying to drum up new business that she’d taken her eyes off the ball.Well, no longer.
Christian rolled back onto his side, pulling the blanket up to his chin like a force field.
Screw him.She accessed the Fidelity website using her phone and keyed in the password. They had an algorithm based on Taylor’s initials and birthday, one password for all accounts to make it easier. Julia quickly got a return message that her credentials weren’t accepted. She tried again.Fat fingers. Just a typo.But no luck. Same message.
Next, she went to the Ameritrade website. Same result.
She jostled her husband awake once more. “I can’t get into any of our accounts,” she informed him as he blinked his eyes open.
“Julia, what are you talking about?” he mumbled.
“You changed all the passwords and didn’t tell me. Why?” Her voice was sharp enough to cut glass.
Christian tried to bury his head under a pillow, muffling his displeasure. “I clicked on something I shouldn’t have and was worried I downloaded spyware,” he explained in a muffled, somnolent voice. “I changed all the passwords as a precaution. It’s no big deal. Please, just get some sleep, or at least letmesleep. You’re worrying too much.”
“You’re not worrying enough.”
Christian didn’t take the bait, and Julia wasn’t in the mood for a fight. Their arguments always went the same way—the angrier she got, the calmer he became, trumpeting AA platitudes like they were going out of style, until it felt like he was a therapist talking to a crazy lady. It was maddening.
She let him sleep. What good would it do to keep rehashing it all? Besides, it was the middle of the night. She couldn’t do a thing about it now. Come morning, she’d ask again for the new password and she’d try not to assume the worst because Christian said he was on top of the bills, and he was her husband. They were a team, meaning there had to be a baseline level of trust.
Trust.
The word was enough to bring back the memory ofthatday. It was years ago, but any reminder made the wound feel fresh again. The seismic upheaval nearly sank their marriage. She didn’t see it coming, but isn’t that the cliché? She’d had no suspicions. There were no warning signs of any kind. There was, however, unfortunate timing—or fortunate, depending on one’s perspective.
She had been looking for her phone, which she often misplaced. She was forever asking Christian to call her number to help her locate it. On this particular afternoon, Christian was out in the yard, and in her search, she found his phone at the exact moment he received an incoming text message.
I can’t stop thinking about you.
Julia’s legs had gone weak. She was standing near a vase full of fresh-cut hyacinths. It was funny how, to this day, the smell of hyacinths still made her knees buckle.
The message didn’t stay on the screen, but it didn’t matter. The words were seared into her mind.
Can’t. Stop. Thinking. About. You.
She found him in the garage, putting gardening tools away. She thrust the phone into his hand.
“Who is she?”
Christian did the expected tap dance routine.
What are you talking about? Who is who? It’s a wrong number. Nothing happened.Then…It was only a onetime thing.
He begged, cried, pleaded, and eventually—after many sessions with a therapist, some difficult soul-searching, spiritual counseling, and a heart probably too forgiving for her own damn good—they were able to salvage their relationship. They both agreed the old marriage was over—it would never be the same. The question remained: Could they make a new and even better one?
After some time, the answer appeared to be yes. Christian quit drinking and left his sales job. No more booze and hotel bars meant no new chances to get into old trouble. He let her monitor his phone as they continued with counseling. Eventually she allowed him to crawl back into her heart before inviting him into their bed.
Along with their new marriage came their new business. But before all that, Julia got her revenge—a little tit for tat that Christian didn’t know about, and that Julia regretted to this day.
Now she feared they were sliding backward. Had she misplaced her trust once again?
That was the beauty of social media. She could use it to fool herself into believing that every moment of her existence was caption-worthy. But real life was complex, like flirty Fiona—sometimes it was beautiful, but other times it was just a hot mess.
Julia made her way downstairs. It was late, but already she had a handful of likes on her moon picture. How lame that she cared.
