Chương 6
“We were getting divorced.”
Leo considered that.
Mason asked, “What’s divorced?”
Iris answered before anyone else could.
“When married people stop being married.”
“Oh.”
Mason looked toward Chloe’s white dress.
“Are you getting divorced today?”
Chloe made a sound somewhere between a cough and a laugh.
Her father stared at the ocean.
Luke closed his eyes briefly.
“We’re not married yet.”
Mason nodded as though that solved a technical problem.
“Then you can’t get divorced.”
“No.”
Luke looked at Chloe.
She looked back without rescuing him.
The children had reduced an afternoon of money, status, betrayal, inheritance, and adult vanity to the simplest possible structure.
There was a man who was supposed to marry a woman.
There were three children who had just learned he was their father.
Everything else was paperwork.
Leo asked the question I had been afraid of since the clinic parking lot seven years earlier.
“Did you leave because you didn’t want kids?”
Luke’s face changed.
“No.”
“You left Mom.”
“Yes.”
“So if you knew about us, would you have come back?”
Nobody on that lawn was breathing normally anymore.
I wanted to interrupt.
I wanted to tell Leo he did not have to ask that.
I wanted to tell Luke not to answer unless he could answer honestly.
Instead I stayed still.
Luke looked at the grass between them.
“I don’t know.”
I hated him less for that answer than I would have hated him for a beautiful lie.
Leo stared at him.
Then he nodded once.
“Okay.”
He sat back on the wall.
Luke remained crouched for another second before standing.
There was no forgiveness in the moment.
There was not even affection.
There was only the first small piece of truth placed where a fantasy might otherwise have grown.
Mason finished his sandwich.
“Can I have the third one now?”
The driver handed him the bag.
I stood and brushed grass from my skirt.
When I turned, Chloe was watching me.
Not Luke.
Me.
“I need to talk to you.”
Her father touched her shoulder.
“Chloe.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
She looked tired suddenly.
Not devastated in the theatrical way people imagine brides become when weddings collapse.
Just tired.
Her makeup remained perfect.
Her veil had shifted slightly to one side.
She reached up, removed it, folded the comb into the tulle, and handed it to her father.
“That thing has been pulling my hair out for an hour.”
He took it without comment.
She looked at Luke.
“I’m going inside.”
He stepped forward.
“Chloe, please.”
“Don’t follow me.”
“We need to talk.”
“Yes.”
She nodded.
“Eventually.”
He looked toward her father.
The older man said nothing.
That seemed to unsettle Luke more than anger would have.
Chloe turned to me.
“Five minutes?”
I looked at the children.
The driver was still with them.
Iris Sterling had moved closer but had stopped at a respectful distance.
She seemed desperate to approach and equally afraid of earning the right.
“Five.”
Chloe led me toward a side terrace off the main house.
We passed two catering staff members pretending to reorganize napkins.
One of them gave Chloe a sympathetic look.
She ignored it until we were through the French doors.
Then she stopped beside a hallway table and took off her shoes.
“I have been standing in those since nine this morning.”
She carried them by the straps.
I waited.
She looked at me.
“Did you come here to stop the wedding?”
“No.”
“Did you know about the trust?”
“No.”
“Did you know his father knew?”
“No.”
She leaned against the wall.
“That would be easier.”
“What would?”
“If you were lying.”
I said nothing.
She gave a small, humorless smile.
“You look exactly like someone who has spent seven years being told she is dramatic.”
The accuracy of it irritated me.
“I’m not asking you to believe me because I look calm.”
“I know.”
“You should verify everything.”
“I intend to.”
That answer made me like her more than I wanted to.
She looked down at her shoes.
“Luke told me you two married young and that you refused to work toward anything bigger.”
I laughed once.
I did not mean to.
Chloe looked up.
“Sorry.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“That tells me enough.”
“It shouldn’t.”
“He said you hated ambition.”
“I hated debt collectors calling during dinner.”
Her eyes closed briefly.
“God.”
“He was not always the person you heard on that message.”
“I’m not sure that helps.”
“It isn’t meant to.”
She pushed herself away from the wall.
“He told me you were jealous of every promotion.”
“I worked two jobs while he finished graduate school.”
“I believe you.”
“Don’t.”
She frowned.
“Verify that too.”
For the first time that afternoon, someone looked at me without pity, suspicion, or horror.
Chloe simply studied me.
“You really don’t want anything from me.”
“I don’t know you.”
“That hasn’t stopped half the people outside.”
I almost smiled.
She sat on the edge of a console bench.
“Why did you come?”
The question was harder than it should have been.
“I almost didn’t.”
“That isn’t why.”
I looked through the glass doors toward the lawn.
Luke stood near the blue box with his mother.
Martin had moved away from both of them.
The children were still on the wall.
Leo was talking to Iris Sterling now.
She had crouched beside him, but she kept her hands folded in her lap.
“I got his message.”
Chloe nodded.
“And?”
“And I was angry.”
“That’s allowed.”
“I wanted him to see me.”
She waited.
“I wanted him to see that I wasn’t poor anymore.”
There it was.
Ugly enough to be true.
“I bought the dress because I knew he’d notice.”
Chloe looked at it.
“It’s a good dress.”
“It should be.”
“How much?”
“Enough that I lied to myself about it being a business expense.”
She laughed.
The sound surprised both of us.
May you like
Then her face softened.
“So you did come partly to hurt him.”
