“You saw him take it, right?”
Marlene asked me that in our kitchen, with the police report between us and a mug of coffee going cold by my elbow. I said yes. I’d already said it to the deputy, too. The college student who’d given us a ride had taken $286 from her purse.
That was the story I told. It was a lie. I’d taken the money myself, before the student ever came along.
I know how that sounds. I know what I deserve for it. I’m writing this because my wife found the student’s face on the news, and I finally had to stop letting my lie stand in for the truth. There’s a reason I kept quiet for so long. It isn’t a good one.
This was 1983, in central Wisconsin. Marlene and I had been married for nine years. We were coming home from a church supper and dance in a town about twenty miles away.
I’d had a few beers, though I told myself it wasn’t enough to matter. My car started coughing on a dark county road just after two in the morning, then quit.
I remember the heater fan clicking after the engine died. I remember Marlene rubbing her hands together because she’d left her gloves in the coatroom. I don’t remember the name of the road. The sign had a dent through the middle, and I could only make out the county number. That’s the kind of thing my mind saved.
We waited because there wasn’t much else to do. No mobile phones then.
The nearest farmhouse looked dark, and I didn’t want to leave Marlene alone by the car. I was already annoyed with myself for drinking, though I hadn’t said that part out loud. I kept saying, “Somebody’ll come by.”
At three, a small car finally came along. The driver slowed, rolled down his window, and asked if we needed help. He looked about twenty, maybe a little older. I noticed the college sweatshirt and the dust on his sleeves. I did not ask his name until later. At the time, I was just glad a person had stopped.
“I can take you into town,” he said.
Marlene thanked him. I asked if he was sure. He said he was headed that way, though I found out later it was a few miles out of his way.
His name was Eli Voss. He was a student at the technical college and lived with his aunt while he went to school. We sat in the back because he had tools and a stack of books in the front seat.
His car smelled like wet wool and old fries. A paper cup rolled around by my shoes every time he took a turn. I remember that detail because I was thinking about how poor his car looked, which is a mean thing to remember about a person who was helping me. He dropped us outside the all-night diner. We offered him cash for gas.
“Happy to help,” he said.
Then he left.
Marlene and I called a tow truck from the diner. The mechanic couldn’t get to our car until morning, so we sat in a booth and drank coffee that tasted burnt. I was tired, a little sick from the beer, and thinking about the money in Marlene’s purse.
I had taken it before we left the dance.
Not all of it. Just the envelope with the grocery money, $286. I’d started betting on football with a man from work that fall. I kept telling myself I could win back what I’d lost. That night I was behind again. I’d taken the envelope from Marlene’s purse while she was in the church bathroom, then slipped it into the inside pocket of my coat.
I meant to put it back. That was what I told myself.
By the time we got home, I’d forgotten to put it back, but I remembered the envelope. I put it in a drawer in the garage. I didn’t tell Marlene because I was ashamed, and because I thought I could fix it before she noticed. She noticed the next morning.
“Did you take the grocery money?” she asked.
I told her I hadn’t. I said maybe the envelope had fallen out of her purse at the diner. Marlene checked her coat pockets and the car. I helped her look, which is the part I still can’t get over. I went through the glove box and lifted the floor mats, acting like I was searching for something I knew where I’d hidden.
Then she remembered the student.
“Maybe it fell out in his car,” she said.
I could have stopped there. I could have told her the truth and taken the anger. Instead I said, “Maybe he took it.”
Marlene looked at me for a second. “He helped us.”
“I know,” I said. “But it was in my purse.”
I didn’t know what else to say, which is not the same as not knowing what was true. I made a show of calling the diner. I asked whether anyone had found an envelope. They hadn’t. Marlene said we should let it go. I said we ought to make a report in case the student had done it before.
I can hear myself saying that now. I wanted a way to make the lie sound like concern.
Three days later, a deputy came by to take a statement. A gas station in the next county had been robbed that week, and the deputy asked if we’d noticed anyone acting strange around the road where we’d broken down. I said no at first. Then I gave him Eli’s description. I told him the student had been driving around that area late at night, and I said I thought he’d taken the money from Marlene’s purse.
The deputy asked whether I’d actually seen Eli touch the purse.
“No,” I said.
He asked whether I’d seen him with a weapon.
“No.”
“Then why do you think he took the money?”
I looked at Marlene. She looked tired and embarrassed. I didn’t want her to ask me again in front of the deputy. So I said, “I saw him leaning over by her coat when we got out.”
That was another lie.
I don’t know why I remember the deputy’s pencil tapping the table. One tap, then another. He asked me to repeat what I’d said, and I repeated it. I was not confused. I was not drunk. I knew what I was doing. When he asked me to sign, I signed.
Marlene didn’t say anything until he left.
“You saw him by my coat?” she asked.
“I thought I did.”
“Dean.”
“I’m trying to help.”
She looked down at the report. “He didn’t even take the money for the ride.”
I said people could be kind one minute and dishonest the next. I said it like I knew something about people. I’d just taken her money and lied to her face, but I managed to sound sure of myself.
The police found Eli through the license plate we’d written down. He’d been stopped for a broken taillight the week before, so they had his address. He told the deputy he remembered us and had dropped us at the diner. He said he hadn’t seen any money. He even remembered the paper cup rolling around in the back seat, which I thought was a funny thing to mention at the time.
The gas station robbery was never connected to Eli. The police couldn’t prove anything about that. But our complaint kept going. The county charged him with taking the $286. Marlene got a subpoena. I did, too.
Before the hearing, she came to me in the garage. I’d been working on the car, though there wasn’t much left to fix.
“I don’t want to do this,” she said.
“Then don’t.”
“They’re asking me to say he stole it.”
“I’ll say what happened.”
She stared at me. “You didn’t see him take anything.”
I wiped my hands on a rag. It had a dark stripe of grease across the middle. I remember that stripe better than what I said next.
“I saw him by your coat.”
“You said you thought you saw him.”
I told her she was remembering it wrong. Then I got mad at her for making me repeat myself. That was easier than answering her.
At the hearing, I told the court what I’d told the deputy. Marlene said she’d realized money was missing after we got home, and that she hadn’t seen Eli take it. She didn’t contradict me, but she didn’t back me up either. I was angry at her for that. I was also relieved.
Eli’s lawyer asked if I had any proof the money was in Marlene’s purse when we left the dance.
“I knew it was there,” I said.
“How did you know?”
“Because she had it with her.”
“Did you see it?”
“No.”
He asked if I’d seen Eli open her purse or touch her coat. I said I’d seen him lean close to it. That was the detail I’d made up, and it sounded thin even to me. But I didn’t take it back.
Eli was convicted. The judge called it a serious breach of trust. I remember hearing those words and thinking about how odd it was to hear them spoken about someone else. Eli got three years because he’d had a prior theft conviction. He’d been caught taking tools from a job site when he was nineteen. I told myself the old charge meant he was probably guilty of ours, too.
That is how I made it easier to sleep.
Marlene and I didn’t talk about Eli much after that. She said once, “I hope they got it right.” I told her the court had decided. She didn’t answer. The money stayed in the garage drawer for two weeks. Then I used it to pay what I owed on a bet.
I told myself that was separate from the case. It wasn’t.
Eli served a little over two years. I learned that from a short newspaper item, not because I went looking. He’d been released early for good behavior. I read the article at the kitchen table while Marlene was packing lunches. It said he planned to finish school and move out of the county.
She asked, “Is that the student?”
I folded the paper. “Looks like it.”
“Did he really do it?”
“I don’t know.”
That was the closest I came to telling the truth for a long time. I still had the envelope in the garage. I had taken it out once after the trial, then shoved it behind a box of old Christmas lights. When we cleaned the garage the next spring, I put it in the trash. I could have shown it to Marlene then. I could have called the deputy. I put it in the trash instead.
Years passed. Our daughter, June, grew up and moved to Madison. Marlene and I had the usual arguments about money, my late nights, and the way I could get quiet when I didn’t want to answer something. I stopped betting after my work friend left town, though I never told Marlene how much I’d lost. I was not cured of lying. I just ran out of the same excuse.
Three weeks before Marlene called me in tears, we’d been sorting old papers at the kitchen table. She was looking for our property tax receipt. I was supposed to be checking the folders, but I kept finding reasons to get up and leave the room.
“You always do this,” she said.
“Do what?”
“Go quiet when something matters.”
I told her she was making a big thing out of a box of papers. She put a hand on the folders and said, “I’m not asking for a fight, Dean.”
I said, “Good.”
That was all. I went to the garage. I still had a habit of going there when I wanted the conversation to stop.
The call came on a Sunday morning in October. Marlene had been visiting June. I was home alone, trying to fix the loose handle on the pantry door. I had one screw between my fingers when the phone rang.
“Turn on the news,” she said.
Her voice was thin, like she’d been crying.
“What happened?”
“Just turn it on.”
I set the screw down and found the local station. The story was about Eli Voss. His conviction had been set aside after a review by a legal clinic and the state innocence project. The reporter said the case had relied on the statements of two witnesses, and one of those statements had changed over time.
Then they showed a photograph of Eli.
I recognized him, but not because he looked just like the young man in my memory. He was older now, with a thick gray beard and lines beside his mouth. I recognized the way he smiled. He had the same lopsided grin he’d given us in the car when Marlene thanked him for the ride.
Marlene said, “That’s him.”
I couldn’t get the screw back between my fingers. I kept trying anyway.
The reporter said the court had found no proof that Eli took the money from us. The case against him had been built around my account of seeing him near Marlene’s coat. The clinic had found a note from the deputy saying I’d admitted I never saw Eli touch the purse. The prosecutor’s office had agreed to dismiss the charge.
Then the reporter said the one thing that made Marlene call me.
“Our review found that Mr. Voss was convicted after a witness gave a false account of what he saw.”
Marlene said my name. Just once.
I turned the television off.
“Dean, did you lie?”
I tried to say no. The word caught in my mouth, which was a stupid thing to happen because I’d been saying no for thirty-six years.
“I took the money,” I said.
She didn’t answer.
“I took it before the dance. I was behind on a bet.”
“You said he took it.”
“I know.”
“You said you saw him.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
I started to say I was scared. I was, but that wasn’t all of it. I was scared of losing her respect. I was scared she’d see the gambling as part of who I was, not some stupid thing I could fix. I wanted her to believe I was still a decent husband. So I handed the shame to a kid who’d driven us to town for free.
“I didn’t want you to know about the money,” I said.
Marlene sat down at the table. She put both hands around her mug, though it had gone cold.
“You let him go to prison.”
“Yes.”
“You watched him get convicted.”
“Yes.”
“You watched him come home and didn’t say anything.”
I had no answer that wasn’t another excuse.
Marlene went to stay with June that night. SheShe came back on Tuesday, but she slept in the spare room. I called the district attorney and gave them a signed statement saying I’d taken the $286 and lied about Eli. They already knew his conviction was gone. My statement couldn’t give him back the years, or make the old story disappear.
Marlene read my copy at the kitchen table. She didn’t tell me she forgave me. I didn’t ask. The last line said, “Eli Voss did not take that money.” I signed my name beneath it.
