<\/p>\n
My husband and I took our four-year-old daughter to his company party celebrating his promotion.<\/p>\n
Everything was going perfectly.<\/p>\n
People congratulated Daniel all evening. His boss shook his hand. His coworkers praised his work. He looked happier than I had seen him in months.<\/p>\n
Our daughter, Lily, was running around with a little plate of cookies when she suddenly stopped.<\/p>\n
She pointed across the ballroom.<\/p>\n
\u201cMommy, look! That\u2019s the lady with the worms!\u201d<\/p>\n
Every conversation around us seemed to stop.<\/p>\n
Several people turned.<\/p>\n
My face burned.<\/p>\n
I knelt beside her.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat worms, sweetheart?\u201d I whispered. \u201cPlease speak softly.\u201d<\/p>\n
She nodded innocently.<\/p>\n
\u201cDaddy said she has worms.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniel suddenly went completely still.<\/p>\n
Lily continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw them when we\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
She stopped.<\/p>\n
Then she looked at her father.<\/p>\n
Daniel’s champagne glass trembled in his hand.<\/p>\n
He wasn’t looking at our daughter anymore.<\/p>\n
He was staring at the woman Lily had pointed toward.<\/p>\n
The woman slowly walked toward us.<\/p>\n
She looked terrified.<\/p>\n
I took Lily’s hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat did you see, honey?\u201d<\/p>\n
Lily looked up at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe worms were coming out of her computer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniel dropped his champagne glass.<\/p>\n
CRASH.<\/strong><\/p>\n Everyone turned.<\/p>\n The woman stopped walking.<\/p>\n Her face went white.<\/p>\n Daniel whispered, \u201cLily, that’s enough.\u201d<\/p>\n But I looked at him.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n He didn’t answer.<\/p>\n I felt something was terribly wrong.<\/p>\n The woman finally reached us.<\/p>\n She looked at Daniel.<\/p>\n Then at me.<\/p>\n \u201cI’m sorry,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n My stomach tightened.<\/p>\n \u201cSorry for what?\u201d<\/p>\n She looked at Lily.<\/p>\n \u201cYour daughter saw something she wasn’t supposed to see.\u201d<\/p>\n Daniel stepped forward.<\/p>\n \u201cRebecca, don’t.\u201d<\/p>\n Rebecca looked at him.<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s already too late.\u201d<\/p>\n The room had gone completely silent.<\/p>\n I looked at my husband.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is she talking about?\u201d<\/p>\n He didn’t answer.<\/p>\n Rebecca reached into her purse and pulled out her phone.<\/p>\n She opened a folder.<\/p>\n \u201cThree weeks ago, I discovered that someone had been secretly accessing confidential company files.\u201d<\/p>\n My husband swallowed.<\/p>\n Rebecca continued.<\/p>\n \u201cI was investigating it.\u201d<\/p>\n She turned the phone toward me.<\/p>\n There were screenshots.<\/p>\n Bank transfers.<\/p>\n Private emails.<\/p>\n Company documents.<\/p>\n And several messages between Daniel and an unknown person.<\/p>\n I stared at the screen.<\/p>\n My husband had been sending confidential company information outside the company.<\/p>\n But that wasn’t the worst part.<\/p>\n One of the messages contained my name.<\/p>\n \u201cOnce the promotion is official, she won’t suspect anything.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n My hands went cold.<\/p>\n I looked at Daniel.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is this?\u201d<\/p>\n He finally spoke.<\/p>\n \u201cI can explain.\u201d<\/p>\n Rebecca shook her head.<\/p>\n \u201cYou’ve had three weeks to explain.\u201d<\/p>\n She looked at me.<\/p>\n \u201cYour husband wasn’t having an affair with me.\u201d<\/p>\n I hadn’t even realized that was what I had been thinking.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was trying to make it look like I was the person leaking information.\u201d<\/p>\n Daniel’s face collapsed.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n Rebecca continued.<\/p>\n \u201cHe created fake emails using my name and planted files on my computer.\u201d<\/p>\n I stared at my husband.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n He didn’t answer.<\/p>\n Then Rebecca said quietly:<\/p>\n \u201cBecause he was stealing money.\u201d<\/p>\n The room erupted in whispers.<\/p>\n Daniel’s promotion suddenly made sense.<\/p>\n He had been diverting company funds into an account under another name.<\/p>\n The promotion would give him access to even more money.<\/p>\n And he had planned to blame Rebecca if the missing funds were discovered.<\/p>\n I looked at Lily.<\/p>\n \u201cThe worms,\u201d I whispered.<\/p>\n Rebecca nodded.<\/p>\n \u201cShe saw the computer screen.\u201d<\/p>\n Daniel had apparently shown Lily something on his laptop at home weeks earlier.<\/p>\n He had called the suspicious lines on the screen \u201cworms\u201d when she asked what they were.<\/p>\n She remembered.<\/p>\n She simply didn’t understand what she had seen.<\/p>\n Daniel tried to grab my hand.<\/p>\n \u201cPlease. Don’t do this here.\u201d<\/p>\n I pulled away.<\/p>\n \u201cYou did this.\u201d<\/p>\n Security arrived.<\/p>\n Then the company’s legal team.<\/p>\n Within minutes, Daniel’s promotion celebration had become an investigation.<\/p>\n He was escorted away from the ballroom.<\/p>\n Rebecca stayed behind.<\/p>\n She knelt beside Lily.<\/p>\n \u201cThank you for telling the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n Lily smiled.<\/p>\n \u201cI wasn’t telling the truth. I was telling Mommy about the worms.\u201d<\/p>\n Rebecca laughed softly.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes that’s exactly how the truth comes out.\u201d<\/p>\n Months later, Daniel was charged with fraud and theft.<\/p>\n The company cleared Rebecca’s name.<\/p>\n She kept her job.<\/p>\n And I filed for divorce.<\/p>\n It wasn’t easy explaining everything to Lily.<\/p>\n But I never blamed her.<\/p>\n One evening, she sat beside me while I tucked her into bed.<\/p>\n \u201cMommy?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAre you sad about Daddy?\u201d<\/p>\n I smiled.<\/p>\n \u201cA little.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAre we okay?\u201d<\/p>\n I kissed her forehead.<\/p>\n \u201cWe’re more than okay.\u201d<\/p>\n She thought for a moment.<\/p>\n Then she whispered:<\/p>\n \u201cGood. Because I don’t like worms anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n I laughed.<\/p>\n Neither did I.<\/p>\n Because sometimes the smallest voice in the room can expose the biggest lie.<\/p>\n And that night, my four-year-old daughter didn’t destroy her father’s career.<\/p>\n She accidentally saved a woman from being framed\u2014and saved me from spending the rest of my life married to a stranger.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cMommy, Look! That\u2019s the Lady With the Worms!\u201d My husband and I took our four-year-old daughter to his company party celebrating his promotion. Everything was going perfectly. People congratulated … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/senglee168.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/senglee168.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/senglee168.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/senglee168.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/senglee168.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23174"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/senglee168.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23176,"href":"https:\/\/senglee168.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23174\/revisions\/23176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/senglee168.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/senglee168.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/senglee168.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}