Chapter 4: Dumplings on the Floor

The doorbell rang again.

Jacob opened it.

Nora stood there in a red down jacket, holding an insulated bag.

"I brought dumplings for Harold," she said, then saw Jacob and froze.

"Come in," I said.

She stepped inside.

Jacob asked, "Ms. Lawson, were you aware that Mr. Bennett was married?"

"Yes."

"Did you live with him from 2022 to now?"

"We kept each other company. It was not like that."

"You slept here, used the bathroom here, kept clothes here, and shared meals daily?"

Her face hardened. "Who are you to question me?"

"Ms. Wells's attorney. If this proceeds, she may seek return of marital assets transferred to you."

Nora looked at Harold.

"You told me you two had been separated for years."

I laughed once.

"Separated? When he called me every night, where did you hide? The balcony or the bathroom?"

She grabbed her bag.

"I'm not getting into your marriage."

"Wait." I looked at the gold chain at her collar. "That necklace is the sixty-two-hundred-dollar one, isn't it?"

Her hand flew to her throat.

"Harold gave it to me."

"Every dollar he gave you was marital property. Return it yourself, or wait for the court."

She stared at Harold. Harold kept his head down.

Nora threw the insulated bag onto the table. Dumplings spilled across the floor.

Pork and cabbage. Harold's favorite.

I used to make them for him every winter.

"Let him pick them up," I told Jacob when he bent down.

Then I turned to Harold.

"Tomorrow, the courthouse. Are you signing?"

He whispered, "Give me two days."

"You have twenty-four hours."

Outside, Jacob walked me to the curb.

"Ms. Wells, there is one more transfer I need to verify. In September, Mr. Bennett moved one hundred fifty thousand dollars from the joint account to a man named Evan Lawson."

"Who is Evan Lawson?"

"Nora's son. He opened a small restaurant in Milwaukee. That money appears to be startup capital."

The wind went straight through my coat.

One hundred fifty thousand.

The savings I had built one exam paper, one class, one night of grading at a time.

"Find out everything," I said.

That evening, my old colleague Linda Carter came to the motel with oranges and a packet of tissues.

"I knew you'd need these."

"I haven't cried."

"Then use them to wipe your hands."

She told me what the building had known.

Nora had started coming up less than six months after I left for Seattle. At first it was cooking. Then laundry. Then staying over. By the second year, everyone knew she had stopped renting downstairs.

"No one told me?" I asked.

Linda lowered her head.

"We didn't know how. You were busy with the child. People said maybe Harold just needed help."

"He needed help. I did not?"

She had no answer.

Then she said, "There is something else. Your storage room. Didn't you keep your mother's redwood jewelry box there?"

My hand went still.

"What about it?"

"I saw Nora wearing a jade bangle once. I could not be sure, but it looked like your mother's."

My mother's bangle.

My grandmother had given it to her when she married. My mother wore it her whole life. Before she died, she took it off and pressed it into my palm.

Keep it, she told me. One day, give it to your daughter-in-law if you want.

I had never worn it. I kept it in the redwood box.