Chương 3
A crushed bloom lay near Julian's abandoned boutonniere.
Chloe followed my eyes.
"I didn't mean for any of this to happen."
I slipped the box into my purse.
"I believe you."
Her head jerked up.
That was not forgiveness, and she knew it.
Eleanor dismissed the remaining staff with short instructions, but even she could not fully control the collapse.
Julian's best man came down from the altar carrying two phones and a folder.
"Mrs. Vale, the reception venue wants to know whether to release the catering staff."
Eleanor shut her eyes for half a second.
"Tell them we're canceling."
"They said there are fees."
"Of course there are fees, Nathan."
He nodded and disappeared toward the side door.
Chloe flinched at the word canceling.
Until then, some part of her must have believed Julian might return.
I could see her listening for his footsteps.
None came.
"Where did he go?"
Eleanor looked toward the vestry doors.
"I don't know."
"You always know."
"Not today."
Chloe stood too quickly and nearly stumbled over her skirt.
I caught her elbow.
She pulled away on instinct.
Then she seemed ashamed of that too.
"I need to find him."
"You need to give him a minute," I said.
"He'll think I'm hiding again."
"You are not going to fix three years of lying in the next five minutes."
Her eyes flashed.
"You don't know our relationship."
The old reflex in me answered before good judgment could stop it.
"Apparently neither does he."
She recoiled.
I wished the sentence back immediately.
Eleanor looked at me, not accusingly, which somehow made it worse.
Chloe nodded once.
"Okay."
Her voice had gone flat.
"That's fair."
"No, it wasn't."
"It was."
She started gathering the front of her dress as if she intended to run after Julian anyway.
I caught sight of her shoes beneath the gown.
They were pale blue.
When she was sixteen, Chloe had sworn she would never wear white shoes at her wedding because, according to her, bridal shoes looked like "hospital pumps with glitter."
I had forgotten that until then.
The memory arrived so suddenly that I had to look away.
Eleanor noticed.
"Clara?"
"I'm fine."
Neither woman believed me.
A woman in a black headset approached from the side aisle.
She introduced herself as the wedding coordinator, although all three of us already knew who she was.
"I am so sorry," she said, with the careful neutrality of someone whose job depended on never appearing interested in family catastrophe.
"There are photographers waiting outside, and some guests have posted."
Eleanor's face sharpened.
"Posted what?"
"I don't know exactly."
"Find out."
The coordinator glanced at Chloe.
"There was video from inside."
Chloe turned pale again.
"Video of what?"
"Mrs. Vale coming down the aisle."
"That doesn't show anything."
The coordinator hesitated.
"Some of the conversation is audible."
Chloe pressed both hands to her face.
I had spent my adult life believing the worst moments were private because grief had taught me that most disasters happened in hospital rooms, bedrooms, kitchens, and parked cars.
This one had happened beneath a sound system and two hundred phones.
Eleanor pulled out her own phone.
Messages covered the screen.
She frowned as she scrolled.
"Don't read comments," I said.
"I'm not."
"You are."
"I'm reading messages."
"Same poison, different bottle."
She gave me a brief, startled look.
Then, unexpectedly, she laughed.
It was one breath of sound and disappeared almost immediately.
Chloe lowered her hands.
Neither of us had expected laughter.
For a moment we were simply three exhausted women in formal clothes standing beside ruined flowers.
Then Chloe's phone began vibrating.
She stared at the name.
"Julian."
I stepped away.
Eleanor did too.
Chloe answered.
"Hi."
Her voice cracked on the single syllable.
We could not hear Julian.
Chloe listened.
"No, I won't come there if you don't want me to."
Another pause.
"Yes."
Her eyes closed.
"Yes, I understand."
She gripped the phone more tightly.
"I didn't lie about loving you."
Whatever he said made her shoulders fold inward.
"I know how that sounds."
She listened for a long time.
"No."
Then, quieter, "There are more."
Eleanor looked at me.
I felt my stomach drop.
Chloe turned away from us.
"Julian, please don't do this over the phone."
The answer came quickly.
She flinched.
"Okay."
Another pause.
"Okay."
When the call ended, she did not move.
I waited.
Eleanor waited.
Finally Chloe said, "He wants a list."
"A list of what?" I asked.
"Everything I lied about."
The cathedral suddenly felt colder.
Eleanor crossed her arms.
"That seems reasonable."
Chloe spun toward her.
"You don't get to say that."
Eleanor's face changed.
"Excuse me?"
"You interrogated me from the first dinner."
"I asked you about your life."
"You asked whether my mother had ever been arrested."
Eleanor went silent.
I looked at her.
She did not deny it.
Chloe's voice shook harder now.
"You asked whether addiction ran in my family, whether I had debt, whether I had ever been evicted, whether I expected Julian to support me."
"I was protecting my son."
"You were auditing me."
"Because I have watched people use him."
"And I wanted you to stop looking at me like I was one of them."
"So you invented a dead mother?"
Chloe's face twisted.
"No."
"Then what would you call it?"
"I call it being scared."
"You were scared of being ordinary."
That landed.
Chloe's chin lifted.
"No."
Her eyes moved to me.
"I was scared of being her."
The words hurt more than the lies had.
I said nothing.
Chloe immediately looked as if she wished she had swallowed them.
But she continued, because shame often made her reckless.
"You want the truth?"
I held the strap of my purse tighter.
"I thought that's what we were finally doing."
"I grew up terrified of money."
Eleanor began to speak, but I raised a hand.
May you like
Chloe looked at me.
"I knew exactly when payday was because you bought groceries that night."
