“Show me what’s in the box first,” I said. “Show me what you saw.”
Daniel sat down on the edge of the bed and opened the lid.
The first thing he took out was a stack of receipts held together with a rubber band.
Hotel receipts. The Lenox Hotel, Boston. The Charles Hotel, Cambridge. Dates going back to 1999. Two nights. Three nights. Once, five nights.
I remembered those trips. The insurance conferences. Robert would pack his brown suit and his good shoes and come home tired and quiet.
“There are forty-one of them,” Daniel said. “I counted. That night. Twelve years ago. I sat on the basement floor and counted.”
Then he took out a checkbook register. Not our checkbook. A different one. A bank I’d never heard of. Eastern Commonwealth Savings.
The register was filled with Robert’s handwriting. Entries going back fourteen years. Checks, every few months.
