With the dispatcher still listening, I opened my phone’s folder containing property-tax, insurance, closing, and deed records. I showed Michael the deed, bearing only one owner’s name: Emily Bennett.
“I think you forgot something,” I said.
Michael didn’t look at the screen.
“This is exactly what you always do.”
“What?”
“You use that condo against me.”
Michael and I met in college. I had a strong salary after graduation, savings my grandparents had left me, and parents who had taught me early that financial independence mattered. By the time Michael and I got engaged, Chicago real estate prices were climbing. Michael couldn’t afford much of a down payment. So before the wedding, I bought the condo outright. I never asked him to contribute. I never put his name on the deed. Not because I didn’t trust him.
Because the money had come from my family, the purchase happened before our marriage, and at the time even Michael agreed keeping the paperwork simple made sense. The night I closed on the condo, he had stood in the empty living room staring at the skyline.
