The Resume

As his account of the marriage shifted, I began to hear revisions elsewhere. The truth about Darius did not arrive in one revelation. It accumulated like charges on a card I had not known we shared.

His military stories grew in the company of strangers. He sat straighter, held their attention a little longer. Routine assignments became dangerous; responsibility became heroism. When someone asked where or when, he offered medical terms instead.

At home, without an audience to impress, he sometimes laughed about how little it took to persuade a system. You only had to know what to say.

"They got money," he said once, leaning against the kitchen island. "You just have to know how to get yours."

Across the island, I set down my glass. "Get yours for what?"

"What you mean? I served."

"That's not what I asked."

He smiled and waited for me to return it. "You take everything too serious."

I knew that a person could return from service injured in ways no one could see. Sleeping until noon proved nothing. But whenever I asked Darius about the battles he said had damaged him, the dates and places slipped out of his account.

I had no grounds for an accusation. Still, when he lowered his voice and waited for sympathy, I felt ashamed of my reluctance to give it.

His professional claims were less dramatic and just as difficult to verify. Years of experience included long stretches without work. I searched for credits and found nothing. His production company had a logo, a folder of unfinished tracks, and something major always about to happen.

I revised his biography, polished the website, made introductions. At the keyboard, I kept trying to find language that made his promises sound like accomplishments. He liked the finished pages. The unfinished tracks remained unfinished.

Corinne's name appeared in old files and references he never finished explaining. None of it told me enough to make an accusation. He called her an old friend; if I asked another question, he wanted to know why I was looking.

My name was inked on his body. A ring was supposedly in somebody's safe. Beside me each night lay a man whose history I could not put in order.

On Darius's credit report, debts he had called settled still showed balances.

We were discussing a mortgage when I suggested we review both credit reports. He pulled his chair up beside mine. Then the website asked him to verify his identity, and he leaned back.

"I know what's on mine," he said, looking away from the screen.

I kept my hand on the trackpad. "Then this will be quick."

"Why you need to see it?"

"Because you keep talking about buying a house with me."

He said credit scores punished people for surviving. There had been medical bills, the divorce, the transition out of the military. There were errors. He counted off the explanations, then said he was disputing everything.

"Show me the disputes," I said.

Darius turned toward me. "You don't trust me."

An hour passed before the report opened. We sat close enough for our knees to touch, neither of us moving. I scrolled through collections, late payments, an account he had never mentioned. Old addresses ran down the screen beside amounts still owed.

Some debts were understandable. The concealment was not.

I stopped scrolling. "How were we buying a house?"

"Your credit is good," Darius said, barely above a mutter.

For once, he had answered the question I asked.

"So my credit was the plan."

"Our future was the plan."

"Built on what you didn't tell me."

He reached across me and shut the laptop.

For months afterward, he called it the night I judged him for being poor. I knew what it was to have less than I needed. What I had not known was that he had already assigned my credit to the house, before I had seen a single balance he owed.

I opened a blank spreadsheet and built Darius a job-application tracker.

Across the top, I typed company, role, salary, date, contact, status, follow-up. Seven columns. A place to record what he had done and what needed doing next.

For a week, he filled the sheet with names and dates. Then the entries stopped. Each time I opened it, the cursor landed beneath the same last row.

"Have you applied anywhere else?" I asked. The spreadsheet was open in front of me, the last application already a week old.

"A few," Darius said, his eyes on me rather than the screen.

"Then add them to the tracker."

"I don't need a spreadsheet to remember what I've done."

Two weeks later, he brought up a contact at a studio. He started to describe their exchange, then paused, trying to remember whether he had followed up.

"Check the tracker," I said, turning the laptop so he could read it.

The studio's name was nowhere on the sheet.

He said I cared more about systems than people. I kept my hand on the edge of the laptop and reminded him that rent was due on the first. The landlord did not need his spreadsheet. He needed a check, and the check came from me.

He pushed his chair back, putting distance between himself and the screen. "I am not your employee."

"Then stop making me your manager," I said, taking my hand off the laptop.

He said nothing. The spreadsheet stayed open between us, a pale grid of empty rows running to the bottom of the screen.