Chapter 4: The Room Behind the Ballroom
Amanda pushed open the small bridal room and spun toward us.
“My father has hated every man I’ve ever dated,” she said.
“Nathan is an old friend.”
Jacob placed the envelope on the dressing table.
Conrad, Tessa, and I remained by the door.
“Then explain the lease,” Jacob said.
“I needed somewhere to work.”
“You work from home.”
“I needed privacy.”
“To send money taken under my mother’s name?”
Amanda pulled her phone from her bouquet.
“Nathan manages investments.
That transfer was going into an account that would grow.”
“An account in his name,” Conrad said.
“It was temporary.”
I stepped forward.
“Return the money request, withdraw the false form, and put in writing that I never approved it.”
Amanda laughed once.
“Or what?
You’ll march back into the reception and announce that your precious son married a monster?”
“No,” I said.
“I will call my bank and my attorney.”
“You do that, and Jacob goes down with me.”
Jacob’s head lifted.
“What does that mean?”
Amanda unlocked her phone and held up a photograph.
It showed Jacob’s signature on a loan application.
“You signed this,” she said.
“Twenty-five thousand dollars.”
“For the catering deposit.”
“The application says business development.”
“You told me it was the bank’s wording.”
Amanda smiled at me.
“If Judith accuses me of fraud, the bank will investigate every document.
Jacob signed that one himself.”
He backed into the dressing table.
“You said the loan had been canceled after Mom paid.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Where is the money?”
Amanda slipped the phone against her chest.
“Agree that this was a misunderstanding, and I’ll settle everything.”
Conrad held out his hand.
“Give me the phone.”
“You don’t control me anymore.”
“I stopped controlling you when you turned eighteen.
I also stopped rescuing you when you took your grandmother’s checks.”
Jacob looked at Conrad.
“Her grandmother’s checks?”
Amanda shoved the phone into her bouquet.
“He is twisting an old family dispute.”
“You copied her signature twice,” Conrad said.
“She refused to press charges because you promised to get help.”
“That was ten years ago!”
“And here we are.”
Amanda turned to Jacob.
“Choose carefully.
Your mother wants you dependent on her again.
She paid for this wedding so she could own it.”
Jacob looked at me.
“Did you?”
The question struck harder than Amanda’s demand that I leave.
“Did I what?”
“Pay because you wanted me back under your control?”
Conrad stepped between us.
“Jacob, that isn’t what’s happening.”
“I need my mother to answer.”
I took Harold’s ring from beneath my dress and closed my hand around it.
“I paid because you asked me.
I kept hoping each check would purchase ten minutes in which you sounded like my son again.”
His mouth opened, but I had not finished.
“That was my mistake,” I said.
“Love offered as money can start looking like money instead of love.
But I did not forge anything, and I did not make you lower your eyes while your wife put me behind a pillar.”
Jacob sat down heavily.
“Mom…”
Amanda moved beside him.
“There.
She admitted it.
She used the money to manipulate you.”
“I admitted that I was lonely,” I said.
“Do not confuse loneliness with theft.”
Tessa touched my elbow.
“Mrs.
Emerson, sit for a moment.”
“I’m all right.”
“No, you’re shaking.”
She removed her own coordinator’s jacket and placed it around my shoulders.
“My grandmother raised me.
If anyone had spoken to her the way you were spoken to tonight, I would want somebody to stand beside her.”
My eyes filled before I could stop them.
Tessa held my hand while I pressed Harold’s ring against my palm.
Jacob took one step toward me.
His phone rang.
He looked at the screen.
“It’s the bank.”
Amanda reached for it.
“Don’t answer.”
Jacob put the call on speaker.
“Mr.
Emerson?” a man said.
“We’re calling about a report submitted ten minutes ago.
Your wife claims Judith Emerson is financially impaired and that the documents in her possession were taken without authorization.”
I looked at Amanda.
She lifted her chin.
“You wanted an investigation.
Now you have one.”
May you like
The voice continued, “Until this is resolved, Mrs.
Emerson’s primary accounts have been temporarily restricted.”
