▸ Column · Modern Gotham, present day — Harley reading the column out of her Coney Island hideout
HARLEY QUINN replies.
Replied to by Harley Quinn, with a rebuttal from Batman.
The letter
Six years married, and last month I stumbled onto a credit card I never knew my husband Terrence had — $23,000 on it, opened three years back, kept alive by him quietly siphoning cash out of the "home repairs" fund we both pay into. When I cornered him, he admitted it was sports memorabilia and two "work retreats" that were actually solo fishing trips. His reason? He knew I'd be upset, so he just... didn't tell me. Here's what's got me hollow: not the money. The fact that he sat across from me at our monthly budget nights, looked me dead in the eye, and ran a whole shadow ledger the entire time. We've got a daughter two years out from college. I can't trust a single figure he hands me now, never mind co-signing anything. Is this a couples-therapy-and-joint-credit-monitoring fix, or is the lying by itself a reason to phone a lawyer?
Harley Quinn replies
Hiya cupcake. Lemme put my doctor glasses on over the face paint, 'cause you already diagnosed this and you're just lookin' for somebody to sign off — so: signed. You said it yourself. It ain't the twenty-three grand. It's budget night. He sat there doin' a little honesty puppet show, mouth movin', books cooked, every single month. The money's a symptom. The performance is the disease.
And ooh, that line — "I knew you'd be upset so I kept it quiet." Sit down, we gotta talk about that sentence. That's not him protectin' YOU, honey, that's him protectin' him from your perfectly reasonable face. I had a fella who locked whole rooms of his life and called it sparin' my feelings. Took me too long, so I'm tellin' you for free: "I hid it 'cause you'd be mad" means "I'd rather lie to ya than deal with ya."
So yeah — call the lawyer. Not to torch the house tomorrow. To find out what's actually yours, 'cause your kid's tuition shouldn't ride on one guy's honor system. Therapy's for later, IF he does the diggin'. You can't shrink your way outta somebody else's lie.
— Harley Quinn
Batman weighs in
Quinn wants you to sit with the feeling. Sit with it later. First: facts. Twenty-three thousand is what he confessed. Assume more. Pull all three credit bureaus tonight. A man who built one hidden ledger built redundancy — there are likely other accounts. Photograph every withdrawal from the repair fund. Move your daughter's tuition into an account only you control. Sign nothing. The lie is not the threat. The undiscovered liabilities are. Therapy resolves nothing you have not first measured. Get the full picture before you decide anything. He is counting on you to look away. Do not.
— Batman
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