Silence.
Then he laughed. “No.”
“She told everyone you did.”
“I know.”
I need to ask you something uncomfortable.
“You know?”
“She told people a lot of things.”
I sat straighter. “Why did you actually leave?”
Eric sighed. “Because of my son.”
“Caleb?”
She told people a lot of things.
“When Donna and I talked about marriage, she complained about what I spent on Caleb — sports, school, college.”
“Why would she care?”
“She wanted to quit working. She said I was sacrificing our lifestyle for him.”
My stomach turned. “So you left.”
Because of my son.
“Eventually. Donna didn’t want a partner, Emily. She wanted a provider.”
Suddenly, her other breakups sounded different too.
Ben had been “cheap.” Marcus had “never wanted to build a future.”
Maybe Eric wasn’t the first man whose side we’d never heard.
But one question mattered more.
Her other breakups sounded different too.
“What about the debts?”
“What debts?”
The way he said it made my stomach drop. “The debts you left Donna with.”
“I didn’t leave her with any. We had no joint credit cards. No loans. I paid my half of the lease and walked away.”
“She told us she owed thousands because of you.”
A pause.
One question mattered more.
“Emily, I have no idea what she did with your money.”
I thanked him and hung up.
Donna probably thought the wedding was her karma.
She was wrong. I wasn’t going to let her humiliate my daughter and keep using our family’s love to fund her lies.
Her real reckoning was still ahead.
I have no idea what she did with your money.
So I opened my banking app.
The baby kicked hard enough to make me shift in my chair.
“Easy,” I muttered. “Your aunt is already raising my blood pressure.”
Adam walked into the kitchen as I searched Donna’s name. “What are you doing?”
Her real reckoning was still ahead.
