Marcus dragged a hand over his face.
One of his relatives had used an old education account in his name years earlier during the worst of his family’s financial collapse. Money had moved through it in ways that made the records look wrong.
His aid applications had also become inaccurate once we were married and I was supporting him.
He had known for weeks that someone might start asking questions.
“I thought if I put distance between us on paper, maybe the questions would stop with me,” he said.
I wanted to believe him.
I really did.
Then I looked again at the documents.
They had been prepared by his family’s longtime attorney.
And the terms were brutal.
There was no acknowledgment of the years I had supported him. No repayment language. No fairness. Just a clean legal exit that left me holding nothing.
I lifted the first page.