“You’re retired, I’m not. From now on we go fifty-fifty.” I said okay and counted out my half. He never did know whose money had been paying our bills.
My neighbor Rhoda and I have shopped together on the first Saturday of the month for twenty years. That Saturday, Roger decided to come along because he wanted steaks for a fishing weekend with the boys. At the register, he picked up the plastic divider bar and laid it across the belt like he was marking a property line. His steaks, coffee and snack cakes went on one side. My milk, bread and dish soap went on the other.
I’d retired from the county clerk’s office four years earlier, after thirty-three years. Roger was sixty-six and still worked three days a week at the auto parts counter in town. He was proud of that little paycheck. For forty-one years, he’d handed me his signed check on Fridays and left me to make sure the bills got paid.
He tapped the divider bar. “You’re retired, Sue, I’m not,” he said, loud enough for the line to hear. “From now on we go fifty-fifty.”
The cashier was Tonya. I’d known her since she was in diapers. She looked at me like she wanted to crawl under the register.
“You want a bag for your half, Miss Sue?” she asked, real quiet.
Rhoda was right behind me with her cart. I didn’t look back at her. I took the money from my wallet and counted out $38.12. I was embarrassed, but mostly I was angry at myself for standing there and letting Roger make a show of it.
In the car he was pleased as punch. “I’m finally gonna have some money of my own,” he said. “Maybe get that bass boat.”
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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