Chapter 6 - THE WOMAN WHO PAID FOR HER DAUGHTER'S WEDDING TWICE
“I need to explain something,” I told Mrs. Whitcomb.
Mom stood behind the counter, staring at me.
Her expression was practically begging.
Don't.
Don't embarrass me.
Don't make this public.
For thirty-four years, that expression had worked.
Not anymore.
“My name was used on this business's materials without my permission,” I said. “I don't manage the company's finances, and I didn't know you had been given my contact information.”
Mrs. Whitcomb looked from me to Mom.
“Then who is responsible for my deposit?”
Mom stepped forward.
“I am.”
The words surprised both of us.
Mrs. Whitcomb's eyes filled.
“My husband and I saved for two years. My daughter wanted something beautiful, and I told her we could manage it.”
She pressed the invoice against her chest.
“She keeps asking whether everything is ready.”
Mom looked suddenly older.
I had spent years believing my mother could make flowers look beautiful under any circumstances.
Now she couldn't even look a frightened customer in the eye.
“Please sit down,” I said to Mrs. Whitcomb.
I pulled a chair from beside the consultation desk.
“May I see the complete order?”
She handed me her folder.
I didn't promise to solve anything.
I simply asked questions.
What had been paid?
What had been ordered?
What had been confirmed?
Within twenty minutes, we established that the designer had approved the arrangement specifications, but the wholesaler hadn't received payment.
Mom could still fulfill the order if she paid the supplier promptly.
I turned to her.
“Can you do that?”
She hesitated.
Then nodded.
“I can use my personal savings.”
“Then contact the supplier now.”
She looked at me.
I held her gaze.
Mom picked up the phone.
Mrs. Whitcomb watched her make the call.
When the supplier confirmed the order, the older woman covered her face.
“I thought I'd have to tell my daughter her flowers were gone.”
I felt anger rise again.
Not the hot anger I'd felt toward Grant.
Something steadier.
These weren't abstract numbers.
They were people.
Families.
Promises.
After Mrs. Whitcomb left, Mom locked the front door for lunch.
Then she turned on me.
“You humiliated me in my own shop.”
I stared at her.
“I helped you honor an obligation.”
“You made me look dishonest.”
“Mom, you used another customer's deposit to pay expenses unrelated to their wedding. How did you think that would look?”
She sank into a chair.
For a long moment, she said nothing.
Then her voice broke.
“I thought Layla was finally going to succeed.”
I stayed standing.
Mom looked at the old photographs on the wall.
There was Dad, grinning beside a delivery van.
Me at seventeen, holding a ridiculous bouquet after my high school graduation.
Layla at nine, sitting inside a cardboard flower box.
“Your father worried about Layla,” Mom said quietly.
I looked at her.
“He worried because he loved her.”
“He was afraid she'd always struggle.”
“And you decided the solution was to make everyone else carry her?”
Mom's eyes filled.
“I didn't see it that way.”
“I know.”
That was part of the problem.
She genuinely hadn't.
I sat across from her.
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
Mom looked exhausted.
“Sunday Table was supposed to bring new business. We signed a two-year lease. The renovations were expensive, but we expected the bookings to cover everything.”
“They didn't.”
“No.”
“So you used customer deposits.”
“We intended to replace them.”
“From what?”
“New contracts.”
I rubbed my forehead.
It was the oldest mistake in small business.
Spending tomorrow's revenue to cover yesterday's promises.
“Then why did you take my twelve thousand dollars for a refrigeration repair?”
Mom looked away.
The silence stretched.
Finally, she whispered, “The cooler needed servicing. But it wasn't broken.”
I stared at her.
“You lied to me.”
“I was desperate.”
“You could've told me the truth.”
“And you would've said no.”
I didn't answer.
Because she was right.
I would have said no.
That didn't make her deception acceptable.
It made it deliberate.
Before I left, I asked for the refrigeration estimate.
Mom retrieved a folder from the filing cabinet.
Inside was a routine maintenance invoice.
Eight hundred and forty dollars.
Not twelve thousand.
I stared at the paper.
Then at another document clipped behind it.
It was a rental payment record for Sunday Table.
My twelve-thousand-dollar transfer had arrived in Mom's account on July 8.
A payment for the studio's renovations had gone out the following morning.
The amounts matched.
Mom watched me read.
“Tessa—”
I raised my hand.
“Don't.”
At the bottom of the payment record was a notation in handwriting I recognized.
Not Layla's.
Not Mom's.
Grant's.
Advance approved. Replenish after wedding.
I read it three times.
May you like
Then I looked up.
“Why was my fiancé approving payments for your business?”
