My Boyfriend Stole My Mother's Last Goodbye to Play Groom for His First Love

CHARLOTTE'S POV

The bank on Harbor Street smelled like burnt coffee and carpet cleaner. A man at the front desk handed me a metal number tag, cold and heavy, with a 14 stamped into it.

I sat in a vinyl chair and held it until they called me.

"I need everything," I told the woman at the desk. Her name tag said Marisol. "Every transaction on the joint account for the last month. Printed."

She typed for a long time. Then the printer whirred, and she slid the pages across to me with the bank's blue stamp pressed into the corner of each one.

I went line by line. My paycheck, deposited. The electric bill. Groceries. Then the transfer, sitting there in black ink like it belonged.

Posted balance: $287.43. Available balance: $0.00. Pending utility payments and card holds had tied up the rest.

"Can he do that?" I asked. "Without me signing anything?"

"As a joint account holder, he can authorize transfers on his own." Marisol's voice softened. "I'm sorry. There's nothing flagged as unauthorized."

I opened the spreadsheet on my phone. Mom - Final Plans. Funeral home deposit. Burial plot fee. The last hospital bill. I'd built it on her kitchen table in September while she watched and told me I was too organized for my own good.

"That money is for my mother's funeral," I said. "He knows exactly what it's for."

Marisol didn't answer. She didn't need to.

I looked at the timestamp. Thursday, 5:56 p.m.

My first call to him went out at 5:52. Four minutes later, before I called again, he'd sat down and moved twenty-four thousand dollars to Audrey.

Four years ago, I sold my car so his line cooks could get paid. Now he'd taken the money I'd saved for my mother's final expenses so Audrey's reception could go on without a hitch.

I called Ashford from the bank lobby. A man named Mr. Pruitt answered at Lindqvist Family Funeral Home, his voice slow and kind.

"We have Tuesday at eleven open," he said. "For the service your mother pre-selected, we'd need a forty-eight hundred dollar deposit to confirm."

I pulled the card out of my wallet. Mom had written it after her first hospital stay and made me promise to keep it on me. Her handwriting slanted hard to the right.

Nothing fancy. Pine is fine. Play "Moon River." Make sure Charlotte eats something after.

I logged into an old savings account at an online bank. $1,340. It had no card, and the transfer I'd requested to a new checking account wouldn't clear until Monday.

"Ms. Reed? Are you still there?"

"I'm here." I swallowed. "Can you hold Tuesday?"

"I can hold it until Friday at noon. After that, I'll have to release it. I'm very sorry. We do have a more basic package if that would help. No viewing, smaller chapel..."

"She already asked for basic." I pressed the card flat against my knee. "I don't need flowers or a grand service. I need enough money to bury my mother the way she asked."

"Friday at noon," he said gently. "I'll keep it for you."

After I hung up, I checked the scheduled payments, just to see what else was gone.

The monthly transfer to Ashford Memorial's billing office, the one I'd set up to pay down Mom's old bills, was canceled. Modified by: Gabriel. Yesterday afternoon.

He'd answered my call before the second ring for once.

"I need it back," I said. "Today."

"Stay there. I'm coming."

He pulled up outside twenty minutes later in our car, the one I'd stood waiting for in the rain. Audrey climbed out of the passenger side with a white binder hugged to her chest. Tabs stuck out of it in pastel colors.

Gabriel spun the car keys around one finger as he walked up. "Okay. I know how it looks."

"How does it look, Gabriel?"

"The venue had a no-cancellation clause. Her fiancé's family refused to pay a cent. The caterer wanted the balance before they'd serve anything." He spread his hands. "I covered it. It's a loan. I'll have it back in the account in a couple months."

"The funeral home needs a deposit by Friday."

Audrey flipped open the binder and held up a pink invoice. "And this came this morning. The florist. Eleven hundred just for the arch, can you believe it?" She tilted her head at me. "But Charlotte, you're so smart. You'll figure something out. You always do, right, Gabe?"

I looked at the binder. Neat columns. Highlighted totals.

"What's left on the schedule?" I asked her.

She blinked. "Just the farewell brunch Sunday. And the photographer's still finishing the album."

"Cancel them." I turned to Gabriel. "Cancel the brunch. Cancel the album. Call every vendor who'll give a deposit back and put it in the account. Today."

"Those deposits are already paid. Half of them are nonrefundable."

"Then get back the half that isn't."

"Jesus, Charlotte." He ran a hand through his hair, and a few people on the sidewalk glanced over. "This is what you always do. You decide there's one right way, and everyone else is wrong. Sometimes you have to bend a little."

The rain started again, light and steady. The fee list from Lindqvist was in my hand, the ink on the deposit line starting to blur.

"Bend," I said. "My mother is lying in a refrigerator in Ashford, and you want me to bend."

"A funeral can be postponed, Charlotte." He said it like he was explaining something simple to a child. "Audrey couldn't be humiliated twice."

Audrey closed the binder and looked down at her shoes.

My phone showed 12:08. Lindqvist's deposit deadline had passed while we argued.

I stood there and let that sentence settle. He didn't take it back. He didn't even seem to hear how it sounded.

I reached into my pocket, pulled the little silver house keychain out, and worked the apartment key off the ring. My fingers were wet and shaking, and it took two tries. Then I took the building access card out of my wallet.

I pressed both into his palm and closed his fingers over them, the way he'd once done to me.

"I want the twenty-four thousand six hundred back," I said. "In writing. Signed and dated, with a repayment date. Send it to my email."

"Char..."

I adjusted the strap of my bag and turned toward the bus station.

He caught my wrist. Hard.

"Where are you going to go?" His voice dropped low, like he was trying to be reasonable. "You've got, what, a couple hundred bucks? You don't even have bus fare. Come home. We'll sort this out."

I twisted my arm and pulled free. The keychain slipped out of my other hand and hit the sidewalk with a small, bright clink. Neither of us bent to get it.

"I'd rather sleep on a bench at the station," I said, "than ask you to drive me anywhere ever again."

"You're being dramatic."

"You can keep the apartment, Gabriel. But you don't get to keep me."

I walked away. I heard him say my name once and then stop.

At the corner, I looked back. Audrey had already slid her arm through his, her cheek resting against his shoulder. She caught my eye over the top of the binder and smiled. Small, satisfied, like she'd just won something she'd been waiting six years for.

The bank statement was crushed in my fist. I hadn't even noticed I was squeezing it.

The bus station was half empty. I went straight to the automated ticket machine and tapped through the screens with cold fingers.

Ashford. Next departure: 6:15 p.m. 1 seat remaining.

I slid my card in.

Payment declined.

I pulled it out, wiped the chip on my sleeve, and tried again.

Payment declined.

Behind me, someone sighed and shifted their weight.

I pushed the card in a third time and held my breath while the little wheel spun.

Payment declined. Please see an agent.

My credit card was already at its limit from Mom's last hospital stay. There wasn't another card to try.

Above the red letters, the seat count blinked on the screen.

1 seat remaining.