Part Six: The House

It took us ten months.

The housing market in central Wisconsin is tight. Everything good sells in a weekend. We looked at thirty houses. We lost four bidding wars.

Then, two weeks ago, we found it.

A little ranch on Maple Avenue. Two bedrooms, one and a half baths. A finished basement. A big backyard with an old apple tree.

And a two-car garage.

Two miles from the mill. Six blocks from Grandma’s.

It was listed at a hundred and sixty-five thousand. We offered a hundred and sixty. The sellers accepted.

I almost fainted in the realtor’s office.

The next morning, I went to the credit union. My own credit union. Where I work.

I needed a cashier’s check for the earnest money. Three thousand dollars. To hold the house.

I sat down at my own teller computer. I pulled up our joint savings account.

Our savings account had eight hundred and twelve dollars in it.

I stared at the screen.

I refreshed it.

I logged out and logged back in.

$812.47.

I’m a bank teller.

I count other people’s money all day.

I had not looked at ours since fall.

Russ handled our bills. He always had. He was better at it than me, he said. I counted money for eight hours a day at work. I didn’t want to come home and count more.

I trusted him.

I pulled up the transaction history.

My hands were shaking so badly I could barely work the mouse.

Nov 3: Withdrawal, $15,000. Cash.

Nov 19: Transfer to external account, $10,000.

Dec 8: Withdrawal, $8,000. Cash.

Jan 12: Transfer to external account, $6,500.

Feb 2: Withdrawal, $3,500. Cash.

Forty-three thousand dollars.

Gone.

I sat at my teller window with my hand over my mouth.

My coworker, Brenda, looked over from the next window.

“Shari?” she said. “You okay, hon? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I’m fine,” I said.

I wasn’t fine.

Part Seven: The Kitchen Table

That night, Russ told me everything at our kitchen table.

He came home from second shift at eleven-thirty. I was sitting at the table in the dark, with the transaction history printed out in front of me.

He saw it.

He sat down across from me without turning on the light.

He didn’t make me ask.

Every dollar had gone to Gil.

“The walk-in cooler died in October,” Russ said.

His voice was very quiet.

“The big one. In the back. Where he keeps the fish and the beer kegs. It just quit one night. The compressor burned out.”

He rubbed his face with both hands.

“It was eighteen thousand to replace,” he said. “Gil didn’t have it. He was going to have to close. He couldn’t run a fish fry without a cooler.”

“Then the property taxes,” Russ said. “He was two years behind. The county sent a letter in November. They were going to put the building up for a tax sale.”

He looked at me.

“Fourteen thousand,” he said. “Plus penalties.”

“Then the beer distributor,” Russ said. “He owed them six thousand. They stopped delivering. Then the insurance lapsed. Then the furnace.”

He put his face in his hands.

“Forty-three thousand,” he said. “Five months.”

I didn’t say anything.

I couldn’t.

“Their dad opened that bar in 1971,” Russ said. Into his hands. “My dad. I grew up in that bar. I learned to walk in that bar. I learned to count making change behind that bar.”

He looked up.

His eyes were wet.

“I couldn’t watch it close, Shar,” he said. “I couldn’t. It’s all I’ve got left of him.”

“And Grandma’s money?” I said. My voice was shaking. “The money she gave us for a house? The money from Grandpa’s land?”

Russ flinched.

“I was going to pay it back,” he said. “Before you ever knew. Gil said business would pick up after Christmas. He said he’d pay me a little every month. I was going to put it back in the account.”

He swallowed.

“I was going to pay it back before you ever looked,” he said.

“Has he paid any of it back?” I asked.

Russ didn’t answer.

“Russ.”

“No,” he said.

I sat at that kitchen table in the dark for a long time.

He is not a bad man.

I want to say that again. Because it’s true. And because it made it worse.

He is not a bad man.

He just never once told his big brother no.

Part Eight: The Law

I didn’t sleep that night.

I lay in bed next to Russ and stared at the ceiling and did the math over and over.

Forty-three thousand dollars. Five withdrawals. Five months.

At three in the morning, I got up and sat at the computer.

I looked up the law.

Here’s what I found.

The money was a gift. To both of us. Russ and Shari Pliska. A joint gift, into a joint account.

Russ had every legal right to take it out. Every dollar. It was his money as much as mine.

He could give it to his brother. He could spend it on lottery tickets. He could set it on fire in the backyard.

There was nothing to sue over.

I couldn’t sue Gil. He hadn’t stolen anything. Russ had given it to him.

I couldn’t sue Russ. Not without a divorce.

The only person with the right to ask about that money was Grandma.

Because it was hers. Before it was ours.

 

Click here to continue reading PART 3: My Husband Secretly Gave His Brother the $43,000 Grandma Gave Us for a House, but She Found Out and Confronted Him