Chapter 6 - THE ACCOUNT CALLED EMERGENCY
The strangest financial discovery came two months later.
An account titled:
Collins Family Emergency Reserve.
Balance:
$74,600.
I almost laughed when Michael showed it to me.
“Emergency reserve?”
“Yes.”
I thought about fifteen dollars on granite.
Apparently labor did not qualify.
Deposits came from Derek’s annual bonuses.
During marriage.
He had talked about an emergency account before.
I assumed it held perhaps five thousand dollars.
Not nearly seventy-five.
Then something else appeared.
Withdrawals.
Regular.
$2,000.
$3,500.
$1,800.
Not into investments.
To Patricia.
His mother.
Over four years:
$63,400.
Derek had been sending his mother money while lecturing me about spending.
Why?
Partly mortgage support.
Partly travel.
Partly household expenses.
Was helping his mother inherently wrong?
No.
I would have understood.
What mattered was concealment.
He had turned my spending into a moral issue while quietly transferring tens of thousands to his family.
I remembered a fight over a $129 prenatal massage my doctor suggested for back pain.
“You’re acting like money is unlimited.”
Meanwhile, two days earlier:
$2,500 to Patricia.
I sat in Michael’s office.
“I don’t want him punished for helping his mother.”
“That’s not what we’re doing.”
“Then what?”
“Accounting.”
There was that word again.
No revenge.
Just math.
Some transfers could be treated as ordinary marital spending.
Some might matter depending on timing and intent.
Attorneys would argue.
What mattered to me personally was simpler.
Derek had never believed in financial restraint.
May you like
He believed in controlling whose desires counted.
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