My husband said he’d be out on the gas pad in Greene County for two weeks. “No signal out there, Em. Don’t worry if I don’t text.”

Then our phone bill came, and his phone had sent 1,140 texts that month to one number in Butler.

The bill’s still on my kitchen table. Emily R. Sutter, it says across the top. Account holder. I pay it every month out of my bus check. I pay most things, if I’m being honest.

“You don’t have to do it all yourself, Em,” my mother tells me every Christmas.

“Watch me,” I always tell her.

I drive route 9 for the Kittanning schools. Forty-one kids, first stop at 6:15. I’ve never asked anybody for a dime, not even my own mother. I’m stubborn like that. Always have been.

Blake’s been on the gas rotation for six years. Two weeks out on the pad, one week home. The week he’s home, he’s good to me. He gets up at 5:30 and makes pancakes so I don’t drive that bus hungry.

“Eat, Em,” he says. “Them kids’ll run you ragged.”

His dad walked out on him and his mom when Blake was nine. Went off to Ohio and started a whole new family.

“I’ll never be him, Em,” Blake told me on our first date at the Sheetz. “Never.”

I’m not gonna lie. That’s half of why I married him.

I never read that phone bill past the total. It’s on autopay.

I’m busy. But the total had jumped, so I sat down with a pop and read the whole thing.

Four lines. Mine, his, my old iPad, and one I’d never seen in my life.

A new iPhone, $41.66 a month, added eleven months ago at the store in Butler.

And his phone, out on a gas pad with no signal, had texted that new line 1,140 times.

Butler is forty minutes from my house. Greene County is two hours the other way.

I called the new number on my lunch break, sitting in my empty bus. A woman picked up.

“Hello? Hello?”

I hung up. My hands were sweating on the wheel.

Then I called the phone company, since it’s my account. The man was real nice about it.

“That line’s in for a screen repair at the Butler store,” he said. “Pickup’s Saturday at eleven.”

I didn’t sleep much that week.

Blake texted me Thursday night. “Miss you, Em. Long day on the pad.”

From no signal.

Friday I told my mother. I didn’t ask her for anything. I just told her.

She was quiet a long time.

“Em, don’t you go making a scene in that store,” she said. “It’ll be on Facebook by supper. Every parent on your bus route will see it. You’ll be the crazy bus lady for the rest of your life.”

She was right, and I knew it.

I went anyway.

I got to the store at 10:40 and sat in the chairs by the phone chargers. I told the girl at the counter who I was and showed her my license. She looked at the account, then at me, and she got real quiet.

“You’re the account holder,” she said.

“I know.”

“And you’re picking up the phone?”

“No,” I said. “I’m waiting for whoever is.”

She nodded slow and didn’t ask anything else.

At 11:05 the,” she said.

“I know.”

“And you’re picking up the phone?”

“No,” I said. “I’m waiting for whoever is.”

She nodded slow and didn’t ask anything else.

At 11:05 the door chimed.

A woman about my age came in, in blue scrubs, with a Sheetz coffee. She went right to the counter.

“Picking up a phone for the screen fix?” she said.

The girl at the counter looked over at me.

I stood up. My knees about quit on me.

“That’s my account,” I said.

The woman laughed a little, like I’d made a joke.

“I don’t think so, hon,” she said. “It’s my boyfriend’s.”

She held up her left hand without even thinking about it. There was a little diamond on it. Not a wedding band. A ring you give a girl when you’re asking.

“We’re getting married in May,” she said, like that settled it.

I thought about the pancakes. I thought about “I’ll never be him, Em.”

My eyes burned, but I wasn’t about to give that store a show.

“What’s his name?” I asked her.

My voice came out flat, like I was calling roll on the bus.

She looked at me funny, then at the girl behind the counter, then back at me. Something in her face changed, like she was starting to understand.

“My boyfriend,” she said slowly. “His name is Blake.”

The girl behind the counter made a sound.

I pulled the phone bill out of my purse and set it on the counter between us.

“Blake Sutter,” I said. “My husband.”

The woman stared at the bill. Her name was printed right there under the fourth line. I watched her read it.

“That’s not, ” she started. Then she stopped.

“You’re on my account,” I said. “Have been for eleven months. I pay for that phone every month. Forty-one sixty-six.”

She put her coffee down on the counter real careful, like she was afraid she’d drop it.

“He said he was divorced,” she said. Her voice had gone thin. “He said it was final.”

“He lied.”

“He’s out on the gas pad right now. Greene County. He’s been there since, “

“He texted me from there Thursday night,” I said. “From no signal.”

She opened her mouth. Closed it.

“He works two weeks out, one week home,” I said. “When’s he home with you?”

She didn’t answer. But I could see it on her face. She was doing the math.

“The weeks he’s supposed to be out on the pad,” I said. “That’s when he’s with you.”

The girl behind the counter had backed up a step and was just staring at both of us.

The woman in the scrubs looked at the ring on her hand. Then she looked at me.

“I didn’t know,” she said.

“I know.”

“He said, he told me his wife left him two years ago. He showed me the apartment in Butler. He said we’d get a house after the wedding.”

I didn’t say anything. There wasn’t much to say.

“What apartment?” I asked.

“On Bonnie Drive. The complex by the hospital.”

I knew the place. Little one-bedrooms, $650 a month.

“He tell you he paid for it?” I asked.

She nodded.

“He’s been home with me every third week for six years,” I said. “I pay our mortgage. I pay the truck payment. I pay this phone bill.”

Her face had gone white.

“I’m keeping the ring,” she said, but her voice shook.

“I don’t want it,” I said.

She picked up her coffee, then put it back down again. Her hands were shaking now.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“You didn’t do it,” I said.

She looked at the girl behind the counter. “Can I still get the phone?”

The girl looked at me.

“It’s my account,” I said. “She’s not getting it.”

The woman in the scrubs nodded. She didn’t argue. She turned and walked out. The door chimed behind her.

I stood there for a second. The girl behind the counter was still staring.

“You want to cancel that line?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “And I want his line suspended until I figure out what I’m doing.”

“I can do that right now.”

She typed for a minute, then looked up at me.

“Done. The phone’s suspended. Do you want me to hold it here, or, “

“Keep it,” I said. “I don’t need it.”

I walked out to my car and sat there in the parking lot for a long time.

Then I called my mother.

“It’s done,” I said.

“What happened?”

“She didn’t know. He told her he was divorced.”

My mother was quiet. Then she said, “What are you gonna do, Em?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“You want to come here?”

“No,” I said. “I got my route Monday morning.”

She made a sound like she wanted to argue, but she didn’t.

I drove home and sat at my kitchen table with that phone bill in front of me. Blake’s line was suspended. He’d figure it out soon enough.

He called my phone Saturday night from someone else’s. I didn’t recognize the number.

“Em, what the hell? My phone’s shut off.”

“I know,” I said.

“What do you mean you know? Did you not pay the bill?”

“I paid it. I always pay it. Just not your line this time.”

There was a long silence.

“Em, “

“I met her today,” I said. “At the phone store in Butler. Nice girl. Blue scrubs. Little diamond ring.”

He didn’t say anything.

“She thought you were divorced,” I said. “Thought you had an apartment you paid for yourself.”

“Em, I can explain, “

“Don’t,” I said. “I saw the bill. 1,140 texts. From Greene County, where there’s no signal.”

“It’s not, “

“Your dad walked out when you were nine,” I said. “Went to Ohio and started over. You told me you’d never be him.”

His breathing was loud on the line.

“I’m coming home,” he said. “We can talk about this.”

“No,” I said. “You’re not.”

“Em, it’s my house, “

“It’s my house,” I said. “My name’s on the mortgage. I’ve been paying it for six years while you played house in Butler.”

“You can’t just, “

“I already called my brother. He’s changing the locks tomorrow.”

“Em, “

I hung up.

He tried calling back four times. I didn’t answer.

Sunday morning my mother came over with coffee and sat with me while my brother put new locks on the front and back doors.

“You doing okay?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “But I will be.”

She patted my hand. Didn’t say I told you so. Didn’t say anything, really. Just sat there.

Blake tried coming by Monday afternoon. I know because my neighbor called me on my lunch break and said there was a man banging on my door.

“Don’t let him in,” I said.

“Wasn’t planning on it, hon.”

I filed for divorce that week. Took half a day off and went to the courthouse with all the phone records printed out. The lawyer said it’d be straightforward.

“You’ve been paying everything?” she asked.

“Everything,” I said.

“Good. Keep doing that. Document it all.”

I’m still driving route 9. Still got forty-one kids, still start at 6:15. I don’t talk about it with the parents, and nobody’s asked. My mother was wrong about that. It didn’t end up on Facebook.

I took Blake’s name off the account. All four lines are in my name now, but there’s only two active. Mine and the iPad.

The house is quiet in the mornings now. No pancakes, no “Eat, Em.” I make my own breakfast and it’s fine.

I told my mother last Sunday that I was doing okay.

“You don’t have to do it all yourself, Em,” she said, same as always.

“I know,” I said. “But I can.”

I’m still stubborn. Always will be.

And I still pay my own bills.