read, “Bank alert, past due credit card payment.”
Alex handled all of their banking, checkbook balancing, budgeting, and bill paying. This was the first time she had ever received an email from their bank, even though all of their accounts were joint. Eliza had never questioned Alex’s ability to handle their financial matters, nor did she want anything to do with it all.
Her fingers trembled as she hesitantly opened the email.
“Your credit card account xxx-x-x0254 is past due. The current balance is $5,523.” Eliza blinked, not believing the figure before her eyes. How could that be? Even given her Christmas shopping online and even if her return had not gone through yet, she had spent nowhere near that much money in the past few months, not to mention the past few years.
It had to be a mistake. Her heart thumped with fear.
She decided to open up their bank account to take a look, but it had been so long since she had checked it that she couldn’t remember the password. Think! She knew it was the kids’ names coupled with an important date. Their wedding anniversary? Her birthday? She typed in all of the possible combinations she could think of, and still it wouldn’t open.
One more try. CameronAustin1225. It worked. Alex must have changed the date. She watched the little circle spin until their bank account opened before her. She scanned the summary of accounts. There was a positive $225 in their checking account, a positive $990 in their savings account, and there it was, $5,523 staring back at her in their credit card account.
She and Alex had had credit issues in the past when they were just starting out in their marriage and at one point decided together to tear up their credit cards and just have one in case of emergency, which she had only used for Christmas and to splurge on the outfit she had bought then returned.
She clicked on the account number and saw several transactions, all labeled “Gila River Casinos.” She glanced down the transaction sheet. There were a few payments of $100 or $250, and about a dozen $500 charges.
Her stomach knotted up, and for a moment she thought she was going to throw up the little bit of lunch she had eaten.
And then she heard a stirring, a man’s footfalls shuffling in the distant corner of the ranch house, her husband making his way to where she sat. She had closed the door, but it was only a matter of minutes before he’d find her. She quickly closed the account window, shut down the computer, and willed herself to calm down, taking deep breaths like they had taught her in Lamaze class.
“Hey, what are you up to?” The office door swung open, and his words startled her even though she anticipated them.
“Nothing. I mean, just playing around on the computer, but I got bored so I was just going to come in and check on you and the kids.” Eliza felt her face flush and turned away to pretend to straighten up a few papers and books on the desk. She stood and stretched, feigning boredom. “I guess I should have crawled in with you to take a nap instead.”
“Hmmm…well we could go back to bed, but since I’ve already had a nap…” Alex playfully winked at her and smiled.
Eliza’s stomach lurched, but she fought to control the nausea that resurfaced at his implication.
Mercifully, they heard the sound of Austin talking gibberish on the baby monitor, and then Cameron poked his head in from around his dad’s legs. “Hi, Mommy, I’m hungry, can I have a snack?” Eliza rolled her eyes and shrugged at her husband, trying to be playful. “Sure, honey, let me fix you a snack,” she said, taking Cameron’s hand to lead him to the kitchen.
“Maybe later,” Alex whispered in her ear when she passed him in the doorway.
“I THINK your husband has a gambling addiction.” Barbara Paulus, PhD, shifted slightly in her upholstered chair where she sat facing Eliza, who sat nervously fidgeting with a tissue in her hands on the small couch across the room.
Eliza had barely gotten any sleep the night she found out about the credit card debt. She had mulled over calling Marsha in the morning to vent her fears and anger but realized her friend was probably not the best confidante, having a penchant for gossip.
Eliza had done a good job of nearly isolating herself in her postpartum blues. And in her consummation with being a good wife and mother and working her part-time job, her world had shrunk even further. Marsha had become her only friend, and a superficial one at that.
But Eliza wasn’t a stranger to loneliness.
CHAPTER 2
ELIZA HAD ACTUALLY GROWN up as a girl named Anna in the Navajo clan of her mother, Wenona Hosteen, who had married her father, Paco Becenti, or rather, was married off to him by her parents when she was just seventeen.
Anna lived with her parents and two older sisters, Flo and Dena, within the borders of the Navajo Nation in Arizona. She was born with the native Navajo name of Anaba, but it was shortened to Anna by her older sisters, who couldn’t quite say her whole name as toddlers.
Anna’s father was a highly respected political Navajo leader, while her mother followed the traditions of the women of her clan, making beautiful native jewelry, sculptures, and other hand-made arts and crafts. They sold the items in the Native American Market at the scenic Oak Creek Canyon Vista Overlook off Highway 89-A. The open-air market sat atop the switchback mountains of Oak Creek Canyon at the mouth of the scenic drive that led into the valleys of Sedona.
Her family had been lucky to win the lottery that allowed them to be one of the sixteen vendors who set up daily to sell only the highest quality authentic arts and crafts as part of the project started by Native Americans for Community Action in partnership with the Coconino National Forest.
Anna was adept at beading and hand-painting wooden sculptures, and she enjoyed helping make the crafts when she was a girl. But as she blossomed into a teenager, she grew restless and bored, knowing there was more to the world, wanting only to escape the reservation to see what lay beyond.
One day a white teenage boy strolling through the market with his family caught her eye. He was tall and lanky with blonde hair that fell over his eyes when he bowed down to take a closer look at the carved stone pieces on their table.
It had been a particularly busy Saturday in their high season that late summer, and as she lugged another batch of jewelry to replenish her mother’s table, Anna looked up, and her dark brown eyes met the most beautiful set of blue eyes she had ever seen. They were the blue-green color of the Colorado River at dawn, or the turquoise rocks she collected in the mountains for cutting into gemstones.
And when he smiled, she felt her heart melt like warmed brown sugar, turning into syrup and trickling down to parts of her body she didn’t really know existed before that moment in time.
She realized she was staring too long when her mother came up and firmly pushed her aside. “Can I help you?” Wenona politely asked.
“N-n-no, I was just looking, thanks,” the boy clumsily muttered and turned to go, probably to look for his parents. But he briefly glanced over his shoulder back toward their table. Anna met his gaze as he flashed her a mischievous grin.
She tried to forget about him, but several hours later as dusk approached, when she was helping pack up their wares, her head bent as she collected all of the jewelry into a satchel, a hand lightly touched her forearm. She looked up, and there he was, his eyes piercing hers. He deftly opened her hand and put a small piece of paper in it, then smiled, winked at her, and waved goodbye, not saying a word. She watched him as he joined what looked to be his parents and his younger brother who were walking toward the parking lot. She waited for her mom to be out of eyesight before she discreetly unfolded the tiny paper. “Meet me back here at the entrance tonight after nine. I will wait for you, Jack.”
Jack. She liked his name and bit her lip to keep from saying it out loud.
SHE FOUND a way to sneak out of their house that night, past where Flo and Dena lay sleeping in the room they all shared, out through the back kitchen door, across the back