New Friends XIV

"Well?" He was sopping up the last of his egg with his under-toasted bread and I was completely done with small talk. He pushed his plate to the side and pressed the button for the kettle...I don't fucking want tea. "I want you to listen to something". He better talk fast because at this point the only thing we will be listening to is the door closing after my cab arrives, I can't stand this type of mental dance. He took out his phone and placed it face up on the counter, my impatience was overflowing and my body language could no longer camouflage my irritation. "It's a message I received almost a decade ago, I wasn't supposed to get this information but someone was sloppy". Now I was intrigued and slightly nervous, I don't want to be an accomplice after the fact. He hit play and I sat back in the chair with my coffee mug in my hand listening to this lady speak. She had an accent, it was clearly Irish with a touch of anger...or vengeance. He stared at the phone while I stared at him and together we took in her words, for me it was the first time but for him these words ring in his head every single day.

We sat in silence for several minutes while I listened to a woman tell someone else that she had been stealing out of her own marital bank account for the past 18 months and accumulated thousands of dollars. She went on to explain that she was secretly seeing a lawyer and found out that with three children her husband would have to give her upwards of ten thousand a month in child support and alimony. Her voice was cold, like a cackle of a witch when she was able to spit out the amount of money she had stolen from her own account and was now hiding in her brothers. My foot started to tap in anxiety and I could feel my heart race, I cannot even imagine how he felt the day he got off an 11 hour day in construction and checked his messages. The phone beeped and the message stopped...the silence was deafening...