HIS STRIPPER, HIS WIFE novel Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Bianca

55 vouchers

“I’m coming, I want to get water.” I said to Emma but she did not believe me. I could tell by the way she watched me pick up my bag instead of just walking to the hallway dispenser, but she let it go, and I slipped out before she could change her mind.

The billing office was on the ground floor. I had been there enough times in the past three days that the woman at the counter recognized me before I ever reached her desk.

“Room 311,” I said. “Emma Fernandes. Someone just told my sister that her outstanding balance was cleared. I need to know who paid for it.”

She turned to her computer and typed slowly, she frowned slightly, typed again, then looked up.

“It came in as an anonymous transfer.”

I stared at her. “Anonymous.”

“Yes.”

“Someone transferred a significant amount of money to a hospital account and left no name.”

“That’s correct.”

I put both hands flat on the counter, not aggressively, just because I needed to feel something solid. “Is there any way to trace it? A bank name, a routing number, anything at all?”

“Not on our end.” She said it with genuine sympathy which somehow made it worse. “Whoever made the payment would have needed the patient account number and the exact outstanding balance to process it. But we have no identifying information on our side.”

I picked up my bag. “Okay,” I said. “Thank you.”

I walked back out into the corridor and stood under the exit sign and went through every person I knew.

My aunt who I called weeks ago? No. Any of my friends? Absolutely not. A mystery person who somehow had access to private hospital billing details and enough money to clear the balance on a random Tuesday evening? I did not have one of those in my life.

I stood there until the ceiling light above me flickered twice and I decided that was a sign to leave. I went back upstairs, told Emma the water dispenser was broken, and she looked at me with the face of someone who knew exactly what I had just gone to do and had chosen to allow me the dignity of the lie.

The next morning I arrived at work with tiredness that has nothing to do with sleep, though that was also missing, and everything to do with spending half the night asking myself who could have sent that money. I wanted to settle into a temporary unsatisfying peace with not knowing but I kept putting it back.

I had a folder of contracts that needed the director’s signature. So I quickly got up and walked towards his office. I knocked on the office door. Nothing. Knocked again. Still nothing.

I pushed it open and looked in, it was empty but his laptop was open and his jacket was on the back of his chair, which meant he had stepped out and would be back shortly. Fine. I would drop the folder and leave..

I walked to the desk, set the folder down neatly in the center, just as I was about to turn, my eyes caught a photograph.

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11:53 Wed, Jul 22

Chapter 15

55 voucher

It was sitting on the right side of his desk, not framed, not displayed, just placed there like someone had set it down in a hurry and I leaned in to check well.

It was me, outside somewhere, mid-step, not looking at the camera. It was close enough that whoever took it was not far away. I picked it up and looked at it for a long moment, then I noticed the folder underneath it.

A plain brown file with no label, no writing on the cover. Any sensible person would have set the photo back down and walked out immediately. But I put the photo down, I looked at the door, looked back at the folder and I opened it.

The first page had my full name, date of birth and the name of my secondary school. I turned the page. My university records, faculty, graduation year, result. I turned again. My previous place of work, my job title, how long I was there, why left.

There was a printed copy of something that looked very much like my tenancy agreement, with my current home address on it. Buried near the back, clipped to a page with a small sticky note, was a number written in blue pen. It was the exact outstanding balance on Emma’s hospital bill.

I stood there and read it twice just to be sure I was not imagining it. I put everything back exactly as I had found it. Photo on top, same position, same angle. My hands were steady, which honestly shocked me because nothing else about my situation

was.

I walked out, closed the door quietly behind me, and returned to my desk. Immediately I sat down, opened my laptop. Stared at an email about a catering invoice for forty five minutes without reading a single word of it.

About an hour later I looked up and saw through the glass wall that he was back. Seated, jacket on, doing whatever required him to look unbothered while I was slowly losing my mind twelve meters away from him. I picked up my pen and walked up to his office.

“Come in.” He said after the first knock.

I entered. “I brought the papers earlier to sign.”

He didn’t look up. “Signed. Corner of the table.”

I walked to the corner, picked up the folder and turned around. I was almost to the door, close enough that my fingers were about to touch the handle, and then my feet stopped.

I stood there, I counted to three in my head, then I turned back around.

He was still looking at his laptop, completely calm and unbothered, as if he had not assembled a full documented record of my entire life and left it sitting on his desk like it was nothing.

“Why did you pay for my sister’s hospital bill?”

He looked up slowly.

I kept my voice level but I was not going to pretend the level was coming from a relaxed place. “The billing office said it was an anonymous transfer. But the figure on that sticky note in your folder was the exact outstanding balance. The exact number.” I stood holding the signed papers. “So. Why did you pay for my sister’s hospital bill?”

The office was very quiet. He looked at me for a long moment, “You went through my files.” He said.

“That is not an answer.”

Is that so?

“I want an answer”

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