She had your number.”
“You told me he was about to lose the hotel,” I said.
“I said the project was demanding.”
“You said people would lose their jobs if I distracted him.”
“I was trying to make you understand consequences.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
“The consequence was that she sat here freezing.”
Amanda reached for the door handle.
“I will not stay while you both rewrite history.”
Daniel’s voice stopped her.
“Leave the gifts.”
She turned.
“What?”
“The gifts.
Leave them.”
“They belong to your family.”
“My mother is my family.”
Amanda looked as though he had slapped the air between them.
Then anger replaced the last of her restraint.
“You think she is innocent because she looks helpless,” she said.
“But this is what she does.
She makes you feel guilty for succeeding.
She sits in this house surrounded by failure and waits for you to rescue her.”
I felt Daniel’s attention shift toward me, but I did not lower my eyes this time.
The house had not failed because I was lazy.
I had raised him there after his father died.
I worked nights, cleaned offices and learned to repair leaking pipes because calling a plumber was a luxury.
I had kept that house through overdue bills, layoffs and illnesses.
Amanda knew none of that because she had never asked.
Daniel did.
“This house is where my mother kept me fed,” he said.
“It is where she slept on the sofa so I could have the bedroom near the radiator.
It is where she sold her wedding ring to pay my school fees.”
Amanda looked at me with open resentment.
“That does not mean you owe her forever.”
Daniel answered without raising his voice.
“I do not owe her because she demanded it.
I help her because I love her.”
Amanda’s hand remained on the door.
“And what happens to us?”
“That depends on whether you tell the truth.”
She stared at him.
He asked one final time.
“Where did the money go?”
The silence stretched so long that the wall clock chimed the quarter hour.
Amanda looked at the floor.
“Some of it covered expenses.”
“What expenses?”
“Our expenses.”
Daniel did not move.
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“You know.”
Her shoulders dropped.
She admitted that the money had merged into her personal account.
She had used it for shopping, travel arrangements, household purchases and payments she considered necessary to maintain the life expected of Daniel’s wife.
