“How odd,” said Annie, and handed over the card to her and Max’s joint savings account.

The receptionist gave a hesitant little cough; her cheeks blotched darker.

“This one doesn’t seem to be working either,” she said, trying not to meet Annie’s gaze.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Annie said, taking the card back and looking it over as if there might be a clue in the shiny plastic. “I can’t understand it.”

“Is there perhaps any reason why your cards might have been stopped?” asked the receptionist awkwardly.

A sudden dawning broke through the clouds of confusion, and Annie felt first hot and then cold as white rage consumed her. With a calmness she didn’t feel, Annie pulled out her personal credit card and handed it over.

“I’d like to use this instead, please,” she said.

As she walked back to her room, she was dizzy with anger. She called Max. He didn’t answer. When his smooth crooning voice said, “Hey, this is Max Sharpe, leave a message and I’ll get right back to you. Beep,” it was all Annie could do not to bite the phone in half. She took a deep breath.

“You froze me out of our accounts!” she yelled into the mic. “Unfreeze them now, Max, or so help me I’ll . . .” What would she do? What could she do? “I’ll make you sorry!” She hoped the threat was vague enough to be menacing.

She was livid. She wanted to throw things and smash stuff, but this wasn’t her house, and the furniture was nailed down. Instead, she lay prostrate on the bed and fantasized about what she’d do if she were at home right now; she’d empty his expensive aftershave down the toilet and replace it with pine floor cleaner, maybe scratch FUCK YOU into his vintage Smiths records with her fingernails, and very possibly fill the toes of his beloved brogues with cat food.

Annie had become pregnant with the twins at just seventeen, and she and Max had married the same year. With her parents’ support, she was still able to enroll at catering college and do her chef’s training. She got a job as a line chef in a Michelin-starred restaurant and worked her arse off to make it up through the ranks to sous chef and then head chef. It was tough, but she was driven.

Max, charming, hardworking, and everyone’s friend, had risen quickly from waiter to manager of a successful gastropub. In the moments when the couple weren’t working or dealing with the demands of raising twin toddlers—usually in the scant time between their heads hitting the pillows and sleep—they fantasized about opening their own place. They had a lot of shared dreams once.