Chapter 5 - VALERIE CALLED ME HERSELF
Valerie called from a number I didn’t recognize.
I almost hung up when she said her name.
For a year, I had imagined that conversation.
I thought I would scream.
Instead I sat at Hannah’s kitchen table and said, “What do you want?”
“To tell you I’m sorry.”
She confirmed what I had suspected.
She and Michael had started seeing each other again eight months earlier.
It lasted six months.
Then she ended it.
Not because he was married.
She admitted shamefully that she had already crossed that line.
She ended it because Michael began asking questions that frightened her.
Valerie worked in commercial lending.
Michael wanted to know how quickly equity could be accessed, what lenders verified during electronic applications, and when money became difficult to reverse.
“I thought his company was failing,” she said.
“Was it?”
“Not the way he told me.”
Valerie had discovered that Michael’s business was profitable enough to survive.
His problem was personal debt.
Credit cards.
Short-term loans.
Cash advances.
And payments she couldn’t explain.
When she confronted him, Michael became furious.
Their relationship ended.
He continued contacting her anyway.
I asked about the perfume.
Valerie was silent.
“That was me,” she finally said. “The last time was when I told him I was done.”
Oddly, hearing the truth hurt less than I expected.
Michael’s affair was no longer the largest betrayal in the room.
Before hanging up, Valerie forwarded messages she had saved.
One stood out.
Michael had asked her a strangely technical question.
If somebody changes their mind after closing, how long do they have?
Valerie had answered:
May you like
Depends on the transaction. Why?
Michael never replied.
