It was there, under a flattened cereal box and the weekly grocery circular from Dillons. An envelope from Meritrust Credit Union, addressed to Leticia Cordero at their address, already opened along the top with a letter opener, empty. He stood holding it. And then, because the envelope was empty and he had come this far and could not stop, he went back inside and up the stairs to their bedroom and opened the drawer of her nightstand, and the statement was folded in thirds under her reading glasses and a bottle of lavender hand cream.
He sat on the edge of her side of the bed to read it.
The account had been opened on April 14th. There was one deposit, on that same day, labeled OFFICIAL CHECK DEPOSIT, in the amount of $20,000.00. There were no other deposits. After that it was all going out: a check to Prairie Fire VBC, a check to someone named Linda Fay Oakes that he understood after a moment was the Andover photographer, Target and Kohl's and the Arts Center and the Comfort Inn in Overland Park and Jostens and a man named Dale Pruyn who must have sold the Civic. Small things and large things. A sporting goods store. The trampoline park. Shoes. The current balance, as of the statement date, was $3,112.47.
An official check. Not a loan. Not a credit card. A cashier's check, from somewhere, from someone, for exactly twenty thousand dollars, deposited into an account in her name alone, on a Monday in April when nothing had happened at all that he could remember.
He thought about Efraín. He made himself think about it squarely, the way he would have thought about it if it had been somebody else's claim: a man who owed eight years of support, who came into money, who had a lawyer or a conscience or both, who cut one check to clear the debt. It was possible. It was the most possible thing. It would explain why the account was in her name. It would explain why she had not wanted it touching the roof fund.
It would not explain why she had told him the car was sixty-five hundred dollars of it and let him believe that was all.
It would not explain Bryony.
He sat on the edge of the bed for a long time. Across the hall Amparo's door was open and he could see her bed, which was made in the haphazard way an eight-year-old makes a bed, the comforter pulled up over a lump of stuffed