My husband asked me to return the money three days before our wedding anniversary, which tells you something about his timing.
We were in the kitchen. He was making coffee and I was reading at the table and it was the kind of evening that looks like nothing from the outside, the ordinary Tuesday texture of a long marriage, and then he said it.
“I’ve been thinking about the investment money,” he said. “The amount your father gave us for the tech fund. I think we should give it back.”
I put down what I was reading.
“Give it back,” I said.
“Return it,” he said. “It’s been in there long enough. We have our own resources now. I don’t think we should keep your father’s money.”
His name was Colin and we had been married for twelve years and I knew the sound of a decision he had already made and was now presenting as a suggestion. It was a particular sound, slightly careful, the way a person sounds when they have rehearsed an opening but are not certain how the conversation will develop from there.
“That money has been in the fund for nine years,” I said.
“I know,” he said.
“It’s grown significantly,” I said. “You know what the returns have been.”
“I know what they’ve been,” he said. “That’s partly why I think we should return it. It would be a meaningful amount for your parents.”
I looked at him. He was looking at the coffee maker in the way he looked at things when he was not actually looking at them.
“My father gave us that money,” I said. “As a gift. He’s told us several times that he does not want it back.”
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