I’d tried to protect her.
So why did it feel as though I’d just ignited something dangerous?
***
At 7:18 the following morning, my phone rang from an unfamiliar number.
I answered.
“What did you do?!”
Tessa.
Her voice sounded strained and frightened, nothing like the confident woman who’d visited me the day before.
“Margaret called me,” she said. “She told me to stay away and said she might stop helping me. What did you say to her?”
I sat upright.
Helping her with what?
“I told Margaret what you said about my husband.”
Her fear instantly turned into anger.
“You think one phone call changes anything? Margaret trusts me. She never even liked you!”
“Funny,” I said. “Why do you care so much what Margaret thinks?”
She fell silent. I could hear her breathing.
“She’ll never choose you over me,” Tessa finally spat. “Never.”
The call ended.
