"Oh hi!" Tasha said brightly to the person as she answered the door, then she turned and looked at Amanda "you have a visitor" she said.
Amanda did wonder who would be visiting at that point in the night. "Mummy!" she exclaimed.
"Oops, I forgot to call you as I wanted, is that why you came here at this time?"
"No," her mother replied and took a seat. Amanda got up from her seated position and gave her mom a hug in her seated position and then,
She suddenly started, "how are you feeling my dear? I heard about the engagement."
Amanda replied, "well I should be feeling great, and yes, I am feeling good. Why would you ask such a ridiculous question mum? It's my sister's engagement!" Her mother looked at her in a sad way and said, "But Amanda, it's an open secret!"
"Huh?" Amanda said with a blank look on her face.
"The way you look at the boy, Eddy, we all know that you have feelings for him, and it would take a fool not to realize that."
"What I mean to say my dear is that he's a fool to have not realized that, but you are both my daughters and I'm equally happy for Ella on this as well, so back to my question, how are you really feeling?"
Amanda looked at her mom for some time as she struggled to keep the tears threatened to fall yet once again but she said, "I'm doing very well mum, do not worry! I'm your strong girl remember?", she laughed but it sounded so fake to the ears of the women in the room.
Even though they were having a mummy and daughter moment, Tasha interjected, "do not worry Madam Yvonne, she got herself a new catch. There was this cute boy, Kelvin that walked her home today, he…" before she could finish her statement Amanda jumped at her and covered her mouth with her hands thereby stopping her from completing the statement. Yvonne laughed at the childish antics of both girls, but she had some assurance from what Tasha had just said even though she knew that the girl was just teasing Amanda.
After this, they sat down and chatted for some time. About an hour later Yvonne turned to Tasha and said, "Tasha dear, do you mind excusing us for a bit? I want to talk to Amanda about something."
"Sure, Madam Yvonne", Tasha replied almost instantaneously, "I even have something to do myself, so I'm just going to go back to my room, and you have a nice chat and have a good night as well", and then she excused herself.
After Tasha had left, she pulled her daughter into the confines of her room and closed the door behind her. She took a seat on her bed and grabbed Amanda's hands in hers.
Afterwards, she started, "Amanda dear, I apologize as I failed as your mother. Your father wants to…" she paused for a bit and decided against telling her whatever was in her mind but then, she rather asked instead, "I want to ask you something and I want you to be as truthful as you can. Can you do that for me?" Amanda nodded and wondered exactly what her mother wanted to inquire about.
"Do you know something about our divorce …?" then Yvonne shook her head and smiled, she thought to herself, "how could she possibly know about it? she was just a child then." She fumbled for a bit and rephrased her question, "I want you to know that the divorce had nothing to do with you, but I think you're old enough to know the reason why we divorced. It's just that your dad, … he-".
Amanda stopped her mother from talking and she said, "I know mum, you don't have to say anything" Yvonne was pleasantly surprised by that. "You know?" she asked, and Amanda said, "yes mum, I know".
Just to test the waters, Yvonne asked, "what exactly do you know, Amanda?"
"I know about him cheating when we were just children" she replied and Yvonne's eyes widened and she stammered, "H-how do you know that? I mean, who told you?"
Amanda stopped her mother and said, "no one told me, mom, I saw it myself. It took me years to understand what I had seen," she affirmed, but one could see that her eyes looked so sad.
"You saw it? Wait, how?". Then Amanda started narrating…
"It was back then, I'm not sure but just before your divorce, I think you had gone out of the house and Emma was sleeping. I wanted something. I'm not sure what as I - I don't remember. So, I walked out of my room with, my favourite teddy bear in my hands. It was late evening, so I had on my nightwear. I walked around everywhere, and I couldn't find you anywhere, so I went to dad's study to ask him for it. Oh, I remember now, I wanted a glass of milk. I couldn't sleep and usually, a warm glass of milk did the trick then. You remember that right?"
Yvonne nodded and thought back as well because, after the divorce, she had found it strange that Amanda stopped asking for her nightly warm milk before bed. She had just assumed that her daughter had outgrown the habit, but it turns out that there was a hidden meaning to it. She berated herself internally for this.
Amanda continued, "when I got there, the door was slightly ajar, and dad was in there. I initially thought that he was with you but, the lady's hair was yellow-blonde actually and she was seated on his desk … b-b-ut she was naked. I could see everything! Dad was in front of her, and he was kissing her, his hands were all over her. I got frightened and I stood at the same spot and… and just watched."
"I didn't know what to do but the woman saw me and said something to daddy, and he turned to look at me. I panicked and run back to my room, but I didn't say anything to anyone. This is the first time I am talking about what I saw that day mum."
Yvonne looked at her daughter, she was stricken and shocked with disbelief written all over her face. "I'm sorry you had to see that, my daughter".
Then she put two and two together and thought, "So this was why Mitch thought that Amanda was the reason for the divorce. If Amanda saw this, then Mitch thought and still thinks that Amanda had relayed that information to her mother, but Amanda had not."
Amanda interrupted her mom's thoughts by saying, "mum, I - I didn't know what it meant then. It was later in my teens that I thought back to that memory and I concluded that that might be why you divorced."
"The divorce was already finalized for years, and I didn't want to make a big deal out of it", Yvonne looked at her daughter and then pulled her into a hug while in her head she vowed,
"he's not going to be able to hurt you. I will find a way around this proposed marriage that he is arranging."
Yvonne, however, did not tell Amanda anything about the marriage because she felt that she would try to take care of it before it came to her ears. How wrong she was…