Forever
where memories would be made. Jack’s “buy the best and then you have no regrets” philosophy fueled their debt. Sure, the gourmet kitchen with its top-of-the-line appliances was used way too little, but those dinners out as a family surely did break up the week. Yes, the debt load was a bit scary, but no one was taking drugs or committing adultery; and anyway, didn’t God create these things for us to enjoy? But hiding the debt from Jennifer was getting harder and harder to do, and Jack knew that if his wife found out, she would lose it. Jack had coped by shuffling money from account to account, but there wasn’t much left to shuffle. His stomach would tighten as Jen left for the grocery store. He hoped and prayed her ATM card would not be rejected. Jen didn’t know how often he waited to mail checks that she gave him because he needed to get funds into the account before they cleared. As he lay in bed waiting for sleep to take him away from his financial woes, Jack beat himself up for being such a poor money manager. He rehearsed old financial decisions again and again, looking for the moment when things began to go bad, but all it got him was less sleep and more anxiety. On the way to work, Jack rehearsed the conversation he needed to have with Jennifer, but he never had it. Nothing was left in their home equity line, and he had no more friends he could tap for help. Jack couldn’t figure out how he had made such a mess of things, and he wasn’t creative enough to think of a way to turn it all around. What he didn’t understand was that his problem was much deeper than a series of poor money decisions. David and Beth were as excited as they had ever been. They were on their way to the airport for a culinary vacation around Europe. Paris, Madrid, Venice, and Berlin — they couldn’t believe it. They were foodies — no doubt about it. They knew they ate out too much, and they had to face the fact that both of them had gained weight since they had married. But they lived in a big city
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