But the real confrontation did not happen in a courtroom. It happened three days later at my sister’s house.

I was sitting on the porch when a small blue sedan pulled into the driveway. A woman got out.

She had dark hair pulled back in a messy clip, and she looked exhausted. She was wearing nurse’s scrubs. Behind her, in the back seat, I could see the small faces of a young girl and a little boy looking out the window.

It was Amanda.

She walked up the wooden steps of the porch. Her hands were shaking so badly she could barely hold her purse.

“Are you Sarah?” she asked. Her voice was trembling.

“I am,” I said, staying seated.

Amanda sat down on the wicker chair opposite me. Tears were already spilling over her eyelashes. “I didn’t know,” she whispered. “I swear to you on my children’s lives, I didn’t know you were still together. Greg told me you guys divorced five years ago. He told me you lived in Indiana and that you refused to let him see Lily unless he sent money.”

I stared at her. The layers of lies were so thick they were dizzying. Greg had told me he was working late to build our future. He had told her he was working late to pay off his “crazy ex-wife” so he could eventually marry her. He had kept us both in the dark, playing the hero in two different houses while using my dead father’s money to fund the entire illusion.

“He told me the 500 dollar donation to the school was from his business,” Amanda sobbed, covering her face with her hands. “He said he wanted Emma and Lucas to feel proud of him at the school event.

I didn’t know he used your name. I didn’t know any of it.”

We sat on that porch for an hour, two women who had been thoroughly ruined by the same man. We compared dates. We compared stories. We realized that Greg had spent Thanksgiving with me and told her he had a plumbing emergency in another city. He had spent Christmas Eve with her and told me he had to help a friend whose pipes had burst.