My husband, Alden, had taken my name off our joint bank account. Then he held his paycheck up in front of me and laughed. “Whoever brings this home calls the shots,” he said. I smiled at him. “Okay, honey. I’ll have something special waiting.”
My name is Joanne Kittle. I carried the mail on a rural route out of Yellville, Arkansas, for thirty-one years. Even now, I read every piece of mail twice. It’s a habit that has saved me from missing more than one important line.
My pension didn’t show up on the third of the month. I noticed before the coffee finished, and drove to the bank with my checkbook in my lap. My reading glasses swung on their beaded chain while I drove.
The teller had been a little girl on my route. She leaned toward me and lowered her voice.
“Miss Joanne, Alden closed that joint checking on Tuesday.”
I gripped the checkbook. “And my pension?”
“Ma’am, I can’t see where it goes now. I’m sorry.”
In the parking lot I checked on my phone. My pension was going into an account number I’d never seen. Alden had set up my pension login years earlier, and I’d never changed the password. That part’s on me, I guess.
Alden was home between truck runs. He drove long-haul, two weeks out and three days home, and had done that for thirty years. I set the bank slip beside his plate. He didn’t look at it.
That little trucking outfit in Harrison still cut paper checks, and Alden liked holding his. He pulled his paycheck out of his shirt pocket and waved it at me.
“Whoever brings this home calls the shots, Joanne.”
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
TAP ” READ MORE ” 👇
