Chapter 16 - THE SECRET TERESA TRIED TO USE
My mother knew exactly where to attack.
If she could not control me with guilt, she would try suspicion.
Hours after Teresa mouthed those words, Victor Crane filed a motion containing private financial records belonging to Amy.
There was an old debt.
Twenty-three thousand dollars.
A credit card account Amy had opened before we met.
I knew about it.
Teresa apparently believed I did not.
Then came something I had never seen.
A bank account under Amy’s maiden name.
Balance.
$47,600.
I stared at the statement.
Amy stared at me.
“Connor.”
“What is this?”
“I can explain.”
Those three words were the worst possible words she could have chosen.
For one second, everything Teresa had spent months planting inside me tried to rise.
Secrets.
Money.
Trust.
Then I remembered my father.
Don’t let guilt make you loyal to someone who hurts the people you love.
I forced myself to ask instead of accuse.
“Tell me.”
Amy took a breath.
“My grandmother left me money.”
“I know.”
“Not all of it went into our joint account.”
“Why?”
“Because your mother told me I should keep something separate.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“She told me that.”
“When?”
“Right after Frederick was born.”
The irony was almost unbelievable.
Teresa had encouraged Amy to hide emergency money.
Then she intended to expose it later.
“Why would she do that?”
Amy understood too.
“To make you distrust me.”
Exactly.
Teresa created the secret.
Then saved evidence of it.
Amy began crying.
“I should have told you.”
“Yes.”
“I was scared.”
“Of me?”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“Of needing money and not having any.”
She explained how financially vulnerable she had felt after leaving her job to care for Frederick.
Teresa constantly reminded her that she earned nothing.
That the house was mine.
That the paycheck was mine.
That Amy could be thrown out anytime.
So when Teresa suggested an emergency account, Amy listened.
My mother manufactured fear.
Then sold the solution.
Then planned to weaponize the solution.
I sat beside my wife.
“I’m angry you didn’t tell me.”
She nodded.
“But I understand why.”
Amy looked at me.
“I don’t want secrets anymore.”
“Neither do I.”
So that night we opened everything.
Accounts.
Passwords.
Debts.
Fears.
Mistakes.
For the first time since Frederick was born, we talked about money without Teresa’s voice sitting between us.
The next morning, the court froze the foreclosure.
Fraud evidence was overwhelming.
Our house was temporarily safe.
Then Hall called.
Patrick Sloan had agreed to cooperate.
May you like
In exchange for consideration at sentencing, he would testify about Teresa.
Including the night my father died.
