The room fell silent when my husband, Gary, insisted that the $2.4 million winning lottery ticket belonged to him. I sat across from him at the lottery claims office, watching his face turn red as an employee examined the paperwork. After thirty-four years of marriage, I barely recognized the man in front of me. Just days after the winning numbers were announced, he had filed for divorce and told me I would walk away with nothing. For nineteen years, I had spent $2 every Friday playing the same numbers at a gas station on Highway 16. Now Gary was claiming the prize as his own. But there was something about that ticket he had apparently overlooked.
When Linda, the lottery employee, began asking questions, Gary's explanations kept changing. First, he claimed he had purchased the ticket. Then he suggested I might have signed it without realizing what I was doing. I quietly opened my purse and placed years of receipts, handwritten records, and old calendars on the table. Linda studied them carefully before announcing that the claim would remain on hold. Gary looked furious, but I knew the investigation was only beginning. What I discovered afterward would expose a secret he had been keeping long before the lottery drawing.
