Then she said Daniel’s hotel project was facing unexpected costs.
She warned me that asking him for money might force him to lay off workers before Christmas.
I had apologized.
I had actually apologized for needing heat.
“You told me he might have to fire people,” I said.
Daniel looked at Amanda.
“My project was fully financed.”
She shook her head.
“I may have simplified the situation.”
“You lied to her.”
“I kept her from adding stress to your life.”
“And you lied to me.”
“I gave you peace of mind.”
Daniel stared at her for several seconds.
Then he held out his hand.
“Your phone.”
Amanda’s fingers tightened around her gloves.
“No.”
“I want to see where the money went.”
“You have no right to search my private accounts.”
“The deposits came from me.”
“They became part of our finances.”
“Not when they were sent for my mother.”
Amanda stepped backward, bumping one of the silver packages with her heel.
The box slid across the floor and struck the base of the tree.
A cracked red ornament fell, bounced once and broke into two dull pieces.
All three of us looked down.
Amanda was the first to move.
“This is absurd,” she said.
“You are interrogating your wife in a freezing room because your mother chose not to ask for help.”
“I did ask,” I said.
She turned on me.
“Not him.”
“You told me not to.”
“You are an adult.”
The cruelty was sharper now because she was frightened.
Daniel stepped between us.
“Do not speak to her like that.”
Amanda’s eyes filled, but the tears seemed to arrive by instruction rather than pain.
“I have spent years supporting you,” she told him.
“Hosting dinners, meeting investors, making your life run smoothly.
Now you are treating me like a criminal over money you never even noticed was gone.”
“I noticed it every month,” Daniel said.
“I believed it was keeping my mother safe.”
Amanda wiped beneath one eye.
“She does not need five thousand dollars a month.”
“That was not your decision.”
“Someone had to be practical.”
“Practical would have been fixing the furnace.”
Her gaze moved toward the gifts.
Daniel followed it.
He looked at the silver boxes, her cashmere coat and the diamond bracelet flashing beneath her sleeve.
He did not accuse her immediately.
He did something worse.
He asked a simple question.
“When did you buy that bracelet?”
