Chapter 8: Sandra
I didn't hang up.
I should have, probably.
Gretchen would have told me to.
But something in the steadiness of Sandra Ellery's voice made me want to understand what Connor thought this phone call was going to accomplish.
"How did you get this number?" I asked.
"Connor gave it to me."
"Of course he did." I moved to the window.
"What do you want, Ms.
Ellery?"
"To talk.
Rationally.
Without attorneys involved yet."
"It's a little late for that."
"Maybe." A pause.
"But not too late to avoid something messy for everyone."
"Define messy."
"Connor is willing to be generous," she said.
"He understands the situation has become complicated.
He's not asking you to forgive him.
He's asking you to step back and let the legal matters between him and Diane resolve privately.
In exchange, he's prepared to offer you a settlement."
The word landed in the room like something dropped from a height.
"A settlement," I repeated.
"For the disruption to your life.
The wedding costs.
Emotional damages.
He's prepared to be fair."
I looked at Dana.
She had heard it.
Her expression said everything.
"He's trying to buy my silence," I said.
"So I stop talking to Diane."
"He's trying to resolve this cleanly," Sandra said.
"For everyone's benefit."
"Including his own."
A brief pause.
"He has a daughter to think about.
He doesn't want Lily caught in the middle of a prolonged legal dispute."
There it was.
Lily's name, used as a reason to back down.
"Ms.
Ellery," I said.
"I want you to listen carefully to what I'm about to say."
"I'm listening."
"Connor used Lily to try to make me feel guilty.
You're doing the same thing right now.
It won't work on me, and I'd like you to know that I'm going to tell Diane about this phone call within the hour."
Silence.
"Additionally," I continued, "everything I've shared with Diane came from public records and my own direct observations.
I haven't done anything improper.
If Connor's attorneys believe otherwise, they're welcome to explain that position to my sister, who is also an attorney and who is already familiar with the LLC, the three properties, and the timing of the Indiana land transfer."
The silence on Sandra's end stretched longer this time.
"Connor said you didn't know about the business," she said finally.
Her voice had lost some of its smoothness.
"He was right.
I didn't.
But I do now."
Another pause.
When she spoke again, the professional warmth was gone entirely.
"You're making this harder than it needs to be."
"No," I said.
"Connor made it hard.
I'm just not making it easy for him."
I ended the call.
My hands were shaking, but my voice had been steady the whole time.
I noticed that with some surprise.
Dana stood up from the table.
"What did she offer?"
"She didn't name a number.
She just said he'd be generous."
"And you said no."
"I said no."
Dana crossed the kitchen and hugged me.
It was the first time since the wedding that I had let anyone do that.
I stood there in her kitchen and felt the shaking in my hands slowly stop.
"Gretchen needs to know about that call," Dana said.
"I'm calling her next."
Gretchen's reaction was immediate.
"He just made a significant legal error," she said.
"Using a business associate to offer payment in exchange for you withdrawing cooperation from his wife's divorce case — that's potentially witness tampering.
I want you to write down everything you remember from that call.
Time, exact words, everything."
"Is that enough to actually hurt him?"
"Combined with the asset transfer?
Combined with the LLC he hid from both of you?" A pause.
"Diane's new attorney is going to have a very productive week."
I wrote down everything I remembered from Sandra's call.
I sent it to Gretchen.
I called Diane and told her about it, and I heard the sound of her writing it down too.
Then I sat on Dana's couch in the quiet of the evening and thought about Connor.
Not with anger.
Not anymore.
With something closer to clarity.
He had built his life in layers.
A regular job on top.
A hidden business underneath.
A marriage he never ended.
An engagement he never had the legal right to make.
And when the layers started to come apart, he had sent a woman named Sandra to offer money to make the problem go away.
He had never once, in any of it, simply told the truth.
My phone lit up one more time.
Connor's number.
I looked at it.
Then I set the phone face-down on the cushion beside me and went to make tea.
When I came back, there was a voicemail.
I pressed play.
"I know you're not going to forgive me," Connor said.
His voice was rough.
Tired.
"I'm not asking you to.
I just — I need you to know that what I felt for you was real.
All of it.
Lily loves you.
That was real too.
I just — I kept making the wrong choice and telling myself I'd fix it later and later kept not coming and then it was too late and I didn't know how to—"
The message cut off.
The voicemail limit.
I set the phone down.
I thought about Lily's note in my purse.
*I hope Daddy marries you.*
I thought about the empty ring box.
Then I thought about Diane in her hospital lobby, handing me an address without hesitation.
About Patricia and her stack of labeled envelopes.
About Rachel crouching in front of Lily at the back of the garden, telling an eight-year-old the truth because no one else would.
May you like
Connor had surrounded himself with women he had underestimated.
That, in the end, was his real mistake.
