Secondhand Love

The door opened just then, and Caleb walked in carrying the roasted sweet potatoes I loved. When he saw the puddle beside the washing machine, he did not even bother changing his shoes. He crouched down, shut off the water valve, then shoved a towel underneath the machine.

"Didn't I tell you to stop using it? It's leaking, and you keep forcing it to work."

Once he had finished, he took my cold hand in his and turned up the heat by one notch. If I had not seen that account, I probably would have still thought he was simply stingy but devoted to his family.

I handed him the tablet. "Was this refrigerator something Yasmine sold you?"

Caleb glanced at the screen without denying it. "Yeah."

His reaction surprised me a little. "What about the washing machine, television, and oven? Were those hers too?"

His tone remained casual. "She replaced them with new ones and didn't want the old appliances anymore. I knew how many years she'd used them and whether they'd ever been repaired. That was more reassuring than buying from a stranger on an online marketplace."

I did not ask anything else.

Instead, I casually opened the listing for the refrigerator we had bought five years ago. "Why did this one cost 300 dollars? You told me you got it for 120."

His hands slowed for half a beat as he wrung out the towel. "She'd just gotten divorced and was short on money. What was wrong with me giving her a little extra?"

"Why did you lie to me then?"

Caleb draped the towel over the edge of the sink and frowned. "I just didn't want you to know it was something she'd already used. I knew you'd feel uncomfortable about it."

I almost laughed. "You knew I'd be uncomfortable, so you decided for me that it was better if I never found out?"

He finally began defending himself. "Does that change whether the appliances work? Have I ever let you go without food or anything else these past five years? Do we really have to dig up everything about our life together just because of who the seller was?"

Suddenly, I remembered the day we had brought that refrigerator home.

It had been raining heavily, and the delivery truck could only stop at the entrance to our alley. To save 20 dollars in delivery fees, Caleb and I had carried the refrigerator up six flights of stairs because our building had no elevator.

His back had hurt for three days afterward. Every night, I rubbed pain-relief ointment into his aching muscles. Even while lying facedown on the bed, he had been smug about the bargain he'd found. "What a steal—120 dollars for something this good!"

The rain had been real. His back pain had been real, too—only the so-called steal had been a lie.

My phone suddenly vibrated.

Yasmine had sent me a voice message. "Nikki, did you see the transaction history on the online marketplace? I'd actually told Caleb he could just take those old appliances for free, but he insisted on paying me the market price. He said that even between friends, he couldn't let me lose out."

There was a brief pause before she added, "It's been like this for years. I thought you knew."

Caleb glanced at my screen, and his expression darkened slightly. "She talks too much. Don't listen to her nonsense."

"Market price," I repeated. "You paid 300 for a refrigerator she'd used for three years, then told me you'd found it for 120. So, who exactly was getting the better deal here?"

His expression grew even uglier, but he still broke open the roasted sweet potato and held out the sweetest piece from the middle.

"Nikki, I was wrong not to tell you about this, but the money's already been spent, and we've used the appliances for five years. If you get yourself so worked up that your stomach starts hurting, aren't you the one who's going to suffer in the end?"

Suddenly, I no longer wanted to argue. He always had a way of admitting he had done something wrong while making my anger seem unreasonable.

I did not take the sweet potato.

Instead, I reopened the earliest order in the purchase history. A message from five years ago was still there.

'When the new one arrives, let me know, and I'll come over to install it. Don't list the old one for sale just yet. My place could use it.'

The date was three days after Caleb and I had registered our marriage.

During those days, he left early and returned late every day. I had always assumed he was busy furnishing our new home. And he was indeed busy preparing a home—just that he sorted out Yasmine's first.