Chapter 7: What Amanda Knew
She called four days later.
I almost didn't answer.
The number was the same unknown one — I'd saved it under no name, just a question mark, which felt accurate.
"I wasn't sure you'd pick up," Amanda said.
"I wasn't sure I would either."
A pause.
"How are you?"
"Don't do that," I said.
"Don't ask me how I am."
"Fair enough." Another pause, longer.
"I want to explain something.
I know I don't have the right to ask you to listen.
But I'd like to try."
I sat down.
"Go ahead."
"Paul and I didn't stay together after the divorce because I wanted to," she said.
"I want you to understand that first.
I ended things with him properly.
I moved on.
I was completely out of his life for almost two years."
"And then?"
"And then he came back.
About eight months before he met you." Her voice was flat and careful, like someone reading from notes they'd memorized.
"He told me he was in financial trouble.
He said he needed help.
I gave him money — I shouldn't have, but I did, because we had history and I believed him."
"How much?"
"Forty thousand dollars."
I said nothing.
"He paid back about six thousand," Amanda continued.
"Then the payments stopped.
And by then he'd met you, and he was — charming again, attentive, the version of him that's very easy to believe in.
He told me the debt was complicated.
He told me he had a plan."
"The property clause."
"I didn't know about that specifically until much later.
What I knew was that he was serious about you.
And that he kept telling me to be patient." A pause.
"I was angry.
I'm not going to pretend I wasn't.
When he asked me to come to the wedding, I thought — I don't know what I thought.
That I'd see it and feel something definitive.
That I'd know whether he'd actually changed."
"You wore a champagne dress," I said.
"To my wedding."
Silence.
"I know," Amanda said quietly.
"That was — I was angry and I was stupid and I am sorry for that.
Genuinely."
"The toast," I said.
"He blew you a kiss.
You pressed your hand to your chest like it was the most moving thing you'd ever heard."
"I know."
"Did you know he was planning to defraud my family when you walked into that room?"
A long pause.
"I suspected," she said.
"I didn't know the specifics.
When Derek came to your father — Paul told me about it, like I said, he thought Derek had backed down.
But I knew Derek well enough to know he wouldn't back down.
So I started asking questions.
And the more Paul deflected, the more I understood what the wedding was actually for."
"And you said nothing."
"I sent you that message."
"After the fact."
"Yes." Her voice dropped.
"After the fact.
I know that's not good enough."
I stood up and walked to the window.
Outside, the street was ordinary — a neighbor walking a dog, a delivery truck, the specific unremarkable texture of a Tuesday afternoon.
"What do you want from me, Amanda?"
"Nothing," she said.
"I want to tell you that I'm filing a civil claim against Paul for the money he owes me.
My lawyer says the recording your father has will be relevant to establishing a pattern of financial deception.
I wanted to tell you before it happened, in case anyone contacts you."
"All right."
"And I wanted to tell you—" She stopped.
Started again.
"I wanted to tell you that you deserved better than both of us that night.
Paul obviously.
But me too.
I behaved badly and I knew I was behaving badly and I did it anyway.
That's not something I can fix.
I just didn't want to not say it."
The dog walker had stopped at the corner.
The dog was sniffing something in the grass with absolute concentration.
"I appreciate you saying it," I said finally.
"I don't expect forgiveness."
"Good," I said.
"Because I don't have any to give you right now."
"That's fair."
"But I'll think about what you've told me."
We stayed on the line for a moment without speaking.
"He's going to fight the civil claim," Amanda said.
"Paul.
He's already told my lawyer he'll countersue.
He's saying the money was a gift."
"Do you have anything in writing?"
"Some texts.
Enough, my lawyer thinks."
"Then use them," I said.
I heard something shift in her breathing.
Not quite relief.
Something more complicated than that.
"Thank you," she said.
I ended the call.
I stood at the window for a while after.
The dog walker was gone.
The street was just a street again.
My phone buzzed.
A text from my father: *Dinner Sunday?
Your aunt Rosemary is coming.
She's been asking about you every day.*
I typed back: *Yes.
I'll bring the wine.*
I set the phone on the windowsill.
Outside, a light came on in the house across the street — warm yellow in an upstairs window, someone moving behind the glass, the ordinary shape of someone else's evening beginning.
I watched it for a moment.
Then I went to make dinner, and I made enough for one, and it was exactly the right amount.
But that night, just before sleep, a thought surfaced that I hadn't let myself look at directly until now: Paul had known about Derek's visit to my father.
Which meant Paul had known, for at least two days before the wedding, that there was a risk.
And he had walked down that aisle anyway.
May you like
Not because he thought he could still win.
But because he thought, even caught, even exposed, I would still choose to stay.
