Eleven years. I let Faron use my credit cards, then I waited until he was trying to buy a boat in front of his friends to let him find out I’d shut them off.

I know that sounds mean. It was mean. I’m not writing this so somebody will tell me I was right.

I work the grill at a diner in Kittanning. Twenty-two years now. I know when the hash browns are ready by the sound they make when I turn them, and I know how long a person can keep pretending not to hear what’s being said at their table.

For a long time, Faron and I were fine. He used to pick me up after the late shift, and we’d share a piece of coconut cream pie in his truck with one fork. I remember the fork had a bent tine. I complained about it every time and still used it.

Then his body shop went under in 2015. His credit was bad, and Earline’s was worse after she co-signed his last loan. He asked me to help until he got back on his feet. I put him on my cards. Then I put his mother on them too.

I paid the bills out of my diner checks and tips. Gas, beer, bait, trips to the casino, and every Friday, Earline’s hair appointment. About six hundred dollars a month. It went on so long I stopped asking what was on the statement. I even stopped looking at the total.

I did write it down once, on a napkin. It came to about $80,000. I tore the napkin up and threw it in the fryer trash.

That part was mine. Nobody forced my hand.

This spring Faron moved out. He said he needed to live a little. He took the good TV and left me the house payment. I didn’t fight over anything in the divorce. I was scared the judge might stick me with his debts if I made trouble, even though my lawyer told me the cards were in my name and weren’t in the divorce papers.

I kept paying.

The divorce was final on a Tuesday. I wore my good blouse. Faron wore his fishing shirt, and Earline had a fresh perm I’d paid for the Friday before. On the courthouse steps she laughed and said I’d still pay for her hair. Faron laughed with her.

I smiled. I said nothing.

I asked him for the cards back. He said if I started trouble, he’d tell Peg, who owns the diner, that I’d been skimming the register.

I’d never taken a dime from Peg. Still, I drove straight to work and told her before he could.

Peg was frying hash browns. She didn’t turn around. She said she’d make him pay for his coffee if he came in to talk about me.

I believed her. I also knew what a small town can do with a lie, even one that falls apart the first time somebody asks a question. I was tired of having to prove I was decent to people who’d been spending my pay for years.

On my lunch break, I sat in my car behind the diner and called the banks. I closed two cards. On the one I used for groceries, I took Faron and Earline off as authorized users. It took twenty minutes.

I should’ve told them right then. I didn’t.

That night I cut up my copies over the kitchen trash can.

The card pieces fell in beside an empty coffee tin. I sat at the table afterward with my hands flat on the wood, telling myself the bills would finally get smaller.

For a few days, they did.

Faron texted Wednesday that a gas pump had eaten his card. I didn’t answer. Earline called the diner Thursday, and Peg said I was busy. I was busy, but I could’ve called her back.

I didn’t.

Saturday, Peg’s diner had the food stand at the county sports show. I worked the pierogi table, using my mother’s recipe. Potato and cheese, a dollar fifty apiece. The recipe cards sit in a box above the grill at the diner, and I touch the box on my way out the back door. I’ve done it for years.

At noon, Faron came through the tent with three fishing buddies. I saw him stop beside a used red bass boat. He patted its side and talked to the salesman. I couldn’t hear every word, but I heard him say fifteen hundred down.

Then he took out his wallet.

I knew what card he’d pull. He still had one with his name on it, the one I’d closed. I’d watched him use it enough times to know where he kept it in the wallet.

That’s the part I keep trying to make sound smaller. I could’ve walked over and told him before the salesman swiped it. I could’ve called out from the pierogi table. I could’ve let him know privately.

I put down my spatula instead.

The salesman walked to the folding table with the little card machine. Faron was grinning at his friends, talking like the boat was already his. One of them slapped him on the back.

The machine made a short beep.

The salesman looked at the screen, then tried the card again. Faron kept talking. I watched him, and I didn’t move.

The salesman came back across the tent holding the card between two fingers. He said, “It was declined.”

Nobody laughed. That was almost worse.

Faron stared at the card, then at the salesman. His friends stopped smiling. I could hear the fryer fan behind me and the paper plates shifting in the breeze coming through the tent flap. I wanted to say something ordinary, like the pierogies were ready. Instead, I stood there with both hands on the edge of the table.

He turned toward me. I didn’t look away.

He didn’t buy the boat. He left with the card in his hand, and his friends went after him without saying much. The salesman took the boat listing down from the table and went back to work.

The next week, I called my lawyer again to make sure I hadn’t left myself responsible for anything new. I hadn’t. Peg kept me on the schedule. Faron didn’t come to the diner. Earline hasn’t called me since.

The bills are lower now. Not low, exactly. I’m still paying for groceries on the one card I kept, and the house payment is still there. But I can get through a month without wondering what else I’m paying for.

I’m not proud of how I handled the sports show. I also can’t say I wish I’d kept paying. Both things are true, and I hate that they fit together so easily.

Yesterday I touched my mother’s recipe box before I left work. Then I took my apron off and stood at the back door longer than I needed to. I could see the parking lot through the open door.

I left it open while I counted the pierogies I had left.