Milk. Eggs. A punnet of fruit. A supermarket brand of paracetamol. A jar of coffee.
At the till her card was declined. She tried a second one. Declined.
And the woman on the till said, in a kind voice, “Again?”
Again.
That one word did more to me than anything else in this entire story.
My wife got a folded handful of small notes out of her bag and counted it. Then she handed the coffee back across the counter. Then she walked four steps to the display, put half the fruit back, and came and paid.
Nine days earlier I had put ten thousand dollars into our household account.
I could have walked round that aisle and paid for her shopping and demanded to know what was going on.
I did not, and it is the only intelligent thing I did in five months.
Because I worked out, standing behind a stack of cereal boxes, that if I solved it with money I would never find out who had caused it.
I followed her home and watched her go in through the service door again.
And that night I let myself into my own house through the utility room and went up the main stairs to our bedroom.
