How A $20 Check Ended My Parents' 25-Year Marriage
A single lunch break changed the course of our lives.
Syda Productions, cottonbro studio, Jupiterimages | Canva My red Converse high tops pushed hard on the gas pedal, all the way to the floor. I couldn’t go fast enough. The winding road of the long way home made the high speed especially thrilling. Was I going home? I was going away. The tape player pumped out Metallica as I focused on one goal: Just keep going.
I don’t know how long the police car chased me before I noticed. I pulled over dutifully. I knew. I turned the radio down and waited. Through the already-opened window, the officer asked for my information. Asked where I was headed. Why so fast?
I told him — just off work, a bad day, just getting out my frustration. I told him I knew I was going too fast, and that I’d take it easy the rest of the way. He mumbled something, a joke maybe, and let me go with a warning.
I did not want to go home — but I knew it was the only place I’d get the full story of the end of my parents' 25-year marriage.
About two hours before my shift ended at the grocery store, my manager told me someone had asked for me by name. I’d worked at that store for seven years at that point — through high school, into college, and now on my way to finishing grad school. Only a few times did anyone ask for you by name — either because you’d helped them before or because (this was most typical) they wanted to complain.
I could see through the windows of the back room that the person waiting was my dad. I already knew this wasn’t going to be good, but wondered why my dad showed up in person instead of just calling the store.
I stood in the back corner of a large grocery store next to the doors to the produce backroom as my dad explained why all the money I’d saved for my last year of grad school was now gone.
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He explained it would work out, that he’d make it up to me somehow. Of course, I couldn’t scream at him at work. I couldn’t tell him that I was tired of these types of things happening over and over.
I did have a knife in my belt (for cutting fruit) but, well, now it seemed my need for this job was even greater than it had been only a few hours before when I’d clocked in.
I told him I had to work. I did the math in my head. I realized I’d have to work extra shifts during the academic year. Maybe I could get added to the stock crew and work overnight to earn the money that was now missing.
The busy store kept my mind occupied and kept me from screaming or crying. That is until I left and screamed in my car. I cried until it felt like I couldn’t cry while driving as fast as my old station wagon would go down a rural road going anywhere but home. Until the lights and siren shook me back to reality.
My mom worked six or seven days a week at a small sales firm. The extra work meant extra pay — nearly making up for all the money my dad somehow managed to lose in various misadventures.
She made and took her lunch to work every day, except for Thursdays. Once a week, she’d have a meal with a friend — a co-worker who also attended church with her. On this Thursday, Mom’s car was in the shop, so Dad drove her to work and planned on picking her up.
On the way to their favorite lunch spot, Mom stopped in at her bank to cash a check. She’d long since separated all her banking from my dad. She didn’t want him to have access to her money, the money she used to keep the house running. She felt safe that way.
This time, though, the bank teller told her she couldn’t cash her check. That her account couldn’t cover the $20 draw.
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Impossible, my mom thought. Her account balance was always meticulously recorded in her checkbook. She asked what her current balance was and was told it was zero. Nothing.
She went out and told her friend to go on to eat, that something was wrong and she needed to talk to the bank manager.
The manager explained that the IRS had taken all the funds in her account.
The cash grab happened because mom signed joint tax returns with dad and they owed a bunch of money to the government. It seems that for years, Dad claimed multiple dependents he did not have, triggering tax refunds he was not owed (and which he didn’t bother to tell Mom about).
He filled out the paper forms and asked Mom to sign them, and that was that. No problems. Until now.
Mom’s checking account: Empty. Her savings account, where I’d been putting most of my summer paychecks to protect them from my youthful spending impulses: Also empty. My grad school tuition: Gone. Mom’s emergency fund, gas money, and money for bills: Not there.
This was the last straw. Though I didn’t want to go home that night, I knew Dad wouldn’t be there. I later learned that Mom didn’t call my dad or alert him that she knew. She just went through her day until he picked her up from work. She told him he needed to leave. He asked for two weeks, she told him he could sleep on the couch. I don’t know where he went that first night.
I worked very hard at not being home over the next two weeks. Extra shifts, staying out at the bowling alley, sleeping at a friend’s house. During that time, Mom filed for divorce and had multiple calls with the IRS and her bank. With some paperwork, she was able to have her funds restored while the IRS sorted out what she might have owed.
That meant mom’s money was back — and my grad school money was back.
Dad ended up being responsible for all the IRS debt as part of the divorce decree.
Then, he declared bankruptcy — which, well, doesn’t eliminate your IRS debt.
That check for $20 ended my parent's 25-year marriage. Sure, the scars from many past bombs weakened the bond, but that check finally broke it.
Andy Spears is a Nashville-based writer, public affairs professional, and college professor. His work has been published in The Progressive, Our Future, The Knoxville News-Sentinel, Medium, The Education Report, and more.