Chapter 14 - The Accounts Come Due
The venue's card processor eventually reversed the disputed charge. My employer recovered the provisional credit as a final adjustment, and compliance closed its review without finding that I had authorized the payment. My travel card access was restored.
It wasn't a victory parade. I had spent weeks answering questions about a transaction made while I was in a hospital, and Mara's staff had spent just as long supplying records. The venue still expected someone to pay for food, flowers, and labor already provided.
That someone was not my employer.
Judson disputed the venue's invoice, claiming the canceled wedding made the costs unfair. Mara showed him the signed contract, its payment schedule, and the charges for services delivered before cancellation. His problem had not disappeared. It had returned to the people who had ordered the party.
Meanwhile, a detective told Nina the assault investigation remained open. Investigators had interviewed the planner, the groomsman who'd steadied me on the stairs, Thatcher, Arlo, and Bellamy. No one would promise what a prosecutor might charge.
I was learning to endure uncertainty without trying to control it. That was harder than shouting would have been.
My mother left three voicemails in one week. First she said Sloan was depressed. Then she accused Thatcher of abandoning his responsibilities. Finally she asked whether I could at least send money toward the florist, since “your sister lost her wedding because of all this.”
I listened to the final message beside a pile of physical therapy exercises.
May you like
Then I blocked her number.
The silence afterward wasn't peaceful at first. It felt like standing in an empty house after the power went out. But it belonged to me, and slowly I learned what to do with it.
