Let me be weighed in an even balance, that God may know mine integrity.
—Job 31:6
“Edwin, where’s your paycheck for this week?” Desiree asked Friday afternoon after having waited the whole day yesterday for him to hand it over. He got paid on Thursdays every two weeks. “Did you deposit it yourself?”
“Don’t you worry about my check. I worked for it, so I’ll hand it over when I’m good and ready.”
Desiree looked at him and began to make a slow, sucking noise with her teeth. “I suppose you also wouldn’t happen to know why our bank account just happens to be overdrawn either, now would you?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t look at me; you’re the one taking care of the bills these days, remember? You believed you could do a better job than what I was doing.” He started to walk away. “It’s your baby now.”
She grabbed him by the wrist. “Wait just a minute,” she said in a quiet voice. “Where are you going? We haven’t finished talking just yet.”
He looked down at her hand holding him. “Woman, what is your problem?”
“Our account is overdrawn by fourteen hundred dollars. Our house note check bounced as well as about six other checks. The bank charges thirty-five dollars every time a check bounces, as I’m sure you already know. That means in addition to the penalties all these people are going to charge us for our bounced checks, we also have charges for seven insufficient fund checks at thirty-five dollars a pop that the bank added to our growing deficit.”
“Like I said, don’t look at me. You handle all of that now.”
“But I balanced the checkbook and we had plenty of money to pay all the bills I wrote, with some left over. I don’t understand what could have happened.”
He pulled his wrist out of her grasp. “Then I’d suggest you check with the bank and see what kind of computer error they plan to blame this one on. Because I don’t have a clue why you’re overdrawn,” Edwin said.
“What about your paycheck?”
He turned and walked up closer to her. “You know what, Desiree? You are really starting to grate on my nerves. You’re starting to sound like a broken record. I don’t have to stand around here getting the third degree from you all the time. If you’re grumpy because you want a cigarette or you’re hungry, then go smoke or get you something to eat other than rabbit food. Just don’t try and take your frustrations out on me. I truly don’t have the time or the patience for this.” He walked over to the table, snatched his baseball cap off it, and started toward the door.
“And just where do you think you’re going? We’re not finished talking yet.”
He made a snorting sound. “Oh, that’s where you’re wrong, Baby-cakes. I’m done. Now if you want to carry on with this nonsense conversation that’s going nowhere, then knock yourself out. I’ll be back. Maybe by then, you’ll be done.”
“Edwin, don’t you dare go to the track! You get back here so we can talk this out!”
“I don’t know if you realize this or not, but I’m a grown man. You don’t tell me where I can and can’t go. If I want to go have some fun at the track, then that’s what I’m going to do. If you don’t like it, nobody’s holding you here. That same door I’ll be walking out in a few seconds can swing the same way for you. Like I just said, I’ll be back.” He walked out, practically slamming the door behind him.
Desiree sat down and looked at the insufficient notice again, with the individual checks and amounts listed, and shook her head. “I don’t understand how this happened,” she said as she stared at the paper. Looking at her watch, she realized the bank would be closing in about forty minutes. She had to hurry if she planned to get there before six o’clock. “It’s times like these when I wish I had opted for on-line banking. Then I could just check it from here.” She got up and headed for the bank to see what could have possibly happened and hopefully to get things straightened out before the day was over.
Desiree wasn’t positive yet, but she felt in her spirit: Edwin will somehow be somewhere in the midst of all of this. What she wasn’t sure about was: If he is, what am I going to do about it?
Desiree came home from the bank practically devastated. How could Edwin do this to me? She knew one thing: she would be waiting up for him when he came home this time around. And when he returned, it would not be pretty. Not pretty at all.