Jordan sat across from me with his hands resting on his knees.
He had shaved that morning.
His shirt was clean.
He looked like a man who had prepared himself for a difficult conversation and hoped good manners would be enough to get him through it.
Pam sat nearby.
She kept looking from her son to me.
I could tell she wanted the evening to go better than the one before.
I wanted that too.
But I wasn't going to confuse a peaceful conversation with an honest one.
Jordan cleared his throat.
"Gary, I know I did something wrong."
I waited.
"I wasn't thinking straight. Things got out of hand."
He glanced at his mother.
"I never wanted either of you to get hurt."
Pam pressed her lips together.
I opened the folder.
"How long?"
Jordan frowned.
"How long what?"
"How long have you been using my information?"
He looked uncomfortable.
Then he said it had started about three years earlier.
Three years.
I had already heard that figure from Pam.
But hearing Jordan admit it made the whole thing feel different.
Three years was not a single bad afternoon.
It wasn't a foolish decision followed by immediate regret.
It was a thousand ordinary days.
Days when he came into our home.
Days when he spoke to his mother.
Days when he looked me in the eye and said nothing.
I asked how many accounts he had opened.
"Three."
"Are those the only ones?"
He paused.
"As far as I remember."
I put down my pen.
"That's not what I asked."
He rubbed his hands together.
"Yes. Three."
I watched him carefully.
There was something about the way he answered that bothered me.
It wasn't only hesitation.
It was the way he seemed to decide how much truth I needed.
As though the conversation was another problem he could manage by giving away small pieces of information.
I had dealt with that kind of behavior before.
Not in my family.
At the storage office.
Sometimes a customer would tell me the rent was only a few days late.
Then I would open the account and find several unpaid months.
Sometimes somebody insisted a lock had never been installed.
Then the records would show when it had been purchased.
I learned to ask specific questions.
And I learned not to accept an answer simply because it was delivered confidently.
I picked up the pen again.
"Did you ever apply for a fourth account?"
Jordan looked at the floor.
"Maybe."
Pam leaned forward.
"Jordan."
He let out a breath.
"I tried another application. I don't think it was approved."
I felt my jaw tighten.
There it was.
One more piece of information he hadn't volunteered.
I asked which company had received the application.
He said he couldn't remember.
I asked when he'd submitted it.
He wasn't sure.
I asked whether he'd used my name.
He nodded.
My name.
Again.
I wrote down what he'd said.
Jordan watched the pen moving.
"Why are you writing everything down?"
"Because I need an accurate record."
"Can't we just talk?"
"We are talking."
He looked toward his mother.
She didn't rescue him.
Instead, she said something I hadn't expected.
"Answer him properly, Jordan."
He looked at her.
For a second, he seemed surprised.
I was surprised too.
Pam had spent almost three years protecting him from questions.
Now she was asking them herself.
I kept my voice even.
"Where did the money go?"
Jordan looked at the folder.
"Which money?"
"The money obtained through the cards."
He shifted in his chair.
"Expenses. Bills. Things I needed."
I waited.
He added that some of it had gone toward gambling.
I asked whether he was still gambling.
He didn't give me a clear answer.
Instead, he began describing what had happened when he first started losing.
He said he thought he could recover the money.
Then the losses grew.
He told himself the next attempt would be different.
He borrowed more.
He spent more.
And each time he fell further behind, he believed another chance would solve the problem.
I listened.
I had never been a gambler.
But I understood the thinking behind chasing a loss.
When a business investment went badly, there was always a temptation to throw more money at it.
Sometimes that was necessary.
Sometimes it was exactly the wrong thing to do.
The difference was knowing when to stop and examine the facts.
Jordan hadn't stopped.
He had kept looking for money.
And when his own resources weren't enough, he'd used mine.
"I didn't know how to get out of it," he said.
I looked at him.
"You had choices."
He shook his head.
"It didn't feel that way."
"You could have told someone the truth."
He stared at the table.
"You could have asked for help without lying about who owed the money."
He said nothing.
"You could have stopped gambling."
He looked away.
"You could have looked for work and made an arrangement to repay what you owed."
He rubbed his forehead.
"I know."
I wasn't certain he did.
Knowing something was wrong after being caught wasn't the same as recognizing it while there was still time to stop.
Pam had been listening quietly.
Then she asked the question I had been holding back.
"Why did you tell me Gary was the one gambling?"
Jordan closed his eyes.
I could see he didn't want to answer.
Pam waited.
"Jordan, I need to understand."
He looked at his mother.
Then he said he had been afraid she wouldn't help him if she knew the debt belonged to him.
The words came out quietly.
Almost reluctantly.
But they were clear.
I watched Pam absorb them.
She had spent years believing she was protecting her husband.
She had taken money from her retirement because she thought I was too ashamed to ask for help.
She had been frightened that our future might collapse.
And Jordan had known all along that the story wasn't true.
He had chosen the lie because he believed it would make his mother more willing to give him money.
That was the part I couldn't get past.
He hadn't merely concealed his behavior.
He had used his mother's concern for me as a way to obtain her savings.
Pam looked down at her hands.
"Why would you do that to me?"
Jordan's voice changed.
"Mom, I didn't mean for this to happen."
She looked up.
"But you made it happen."
He shook his head.
"I thought I could pay everything back."
"That isn't what I'm asking."
He went quiet.
She wiped her eyes.
"You let me believe my husband was destroying our future."
Jordan stared at her.
"You knew I was worried sick about him."
He didn't answer.
"You knew I was taking money from my retirement."
His shoulders dropped.
"I know."
She waited for him to say something more.
He didn't.
I felt something shift inside me.
For the first time that evening, I stopped thinking about what Jordan had done to my finances.
I looked at Pam.
She had been deceived too.
Not in the same way.
Not without responsibility for her own decisions.
But her son had used her love and fear against her.
And I could see she was finally beginning to understand that.
I wasn't ready to excuse her for believing the accusations.
I still couldn't understand why she'd never spoken to me.
But I could recognize the cruelty in what Jordan had done to her.
He had allowed her to worry for years.
He had watched her take money from her future.
And he had done it knowing that every dollar made it easier for him to avoid facing his own behavior.
I looked back at him.
"Did you ever think about telling your mother the truth?"
He rubbed his face.
"I kept meaning to."
"When?"
He looked confused.
"What?"
"When were you going to tell her?"
He opened his mouth.
Then closed it.
I waited.
He finally said he had hoped to settle the accounts first.
I looked at the statements.
The balances hadn't disappeared.
The payments had continued.
And the records showed that money was still being spent.
I asked what his plan had been when the accounts were finally paid.
He said he hadn't thought that far ahead.
That answer was probably the most believable thing he'd said.
He had been living from one problem to the next.
One payment.
One loss.
One excuse.
And he had expected everybody else to deal with the consequences later.
Pam began crying again.
Jordan looked alarmed.
"Mom, please."
She shook her head.
"I don't know how you could watch me go through this."
He reached toward her.
She didn't take his hand.
I saw that.
It was a small movement.
But it mattered.
Pam had always been quick to comfort people.
She wasn't refusing because she had stopped loving him.
She was refusing because, for once, she didn't know whether comforting him was the right thing to do.
I looked at the blank sheet I'd placed near the folder.
There were too many unanswered questions.
Three known accounts.
A possible fourth application.
Unknown transactions.
Money taken from Pam's retirement.
And a story about my supposed gambling that had lasted almost three years.
I wasn't going to settle any of it with a handshake.
I slid the paper across the table.
"Jordan, I need you to write down everything you remember."
He looked at it.
"Everything?"
"Every account. Every application. Every address and phone number you used."
He swallowed.
"And every attempt, whether you think it was approved or not."
He looked toward Pam.
She had stopped crying long enough to meet his eyes.
"Do it," she said.
He picked up the pen.
And I watched him begin writing down the things he should have told us years earlier.
Source: psndaily.xyz
Click here to continue reading: PART 6: While My Stepson Listed the Accounts He Had Opened in My Name, He Admitted Another Secret That Left His Mother Devastated
I Was Sixty-Nine When I Learned My Stepson Had Been Using My Name, And My Wife Had Believed His Lies for Years
Part 5 of 15
