Chương 2
Eric caught her around the shoulders.
"Don't touch me!"
She twisted away from him.
The movement knocked a chair sideways.
One of my cousins began crying.
I wanted everyone to leave.
The thought came with sudden, almost physical force.
I did not care what Daniel had on his phone.
I did not care what Claire had done.
I did not care whether the caterer was waiting with two hundred miniature crab cakes in the kitchen.
I wanted every person in that building gone.
"Stop."
Nobody heard me.
Daniel was saying something to Claire.
My father was demanding the phone.
Mark had started asking Claire whether she had been seeing Daniel.
"Stop!"
This time they heard me.
I pulled my mother's ruined wrap tighter around myself.
Red paint had reached the inside of my shoes.
My toes squished when I moved.
"Everybody get out."
Daniel blinked.
"What?"
"You wanted an audience."
My voice shook now.
I hated that.
"You had one."
"Anna, you need to hear this."
"No."
"You don't even know what happened."
"Neither do they."
I pointed toward the guests.
A few people looked away.
"You brought my coworkers here."
Daniel's expression changed slightly.
"You brought my grandmother here."
Grandma Ruth, eighty-seven and five feet tall in orthopedic shoes, was sitting in the second row with her purse clutched against her chest.
She looked furious rather than shocked.
"You brought children here."
"Anna."
"You hid a bucket of paint behind our wedding flowers."
His jaw tightened.
"I had a reason."
"I'm sure you had several."
My voice broke on the last word.
I turned away before he could see what happened to my face.
The first person to move was Aunt Melanie.
She took her husband's arm and quietly headed toward the doors.
Others followed, slowly at first.
Nobody knew whether leaving was rude.
That absurd hesitation nearly made me laugh.
We had apparently reached a social situation for which wedding etiquette offered limited guidance.
My college roommate Beth came to me and asked if I wanted her to stay.
I nodded.
Then I changed my mind and shook my head.
She hugged me anyway, carefully, although the paint ruined the front of her blue dress.
"Okay."
"You don't have to be okay."
"Please don't."
She understood.
She left.
Within five minutes, most of the chairs were empty.
Nobody knew what to do with the gifts.
Several guests took theirs back to their cars, which I found strangely practical.
The photographer remained near the rear wall with both cameras hanging at his sides.
I had forgotten he existed.
His name was Luis.
He had photographed my friend Kendra's wedding two years earlier.
"Anna."
I looked at him.
He wasn't holding either camera.
"I need to tell you something."
Daniel's head snapped toward him.
"Not now."
Luis ignored him.
"I think it needs to be now."
Something in Daniel's face changed.
Not anger.
Fear.
It was small, but after four years of loving him, I knew the difference.
Luis walked toward the altar.
He bent down and picked up the strip of my dress Daniel had torn away first.
A little red paint had splashed across the lace.
"Before the ceremony," he said, "I was shooting details in here."
Daniel stepped forward.
"Luis."
Eric put a hand against Daniel's chest.
"Let him talk."
Luis turned the torn fabric over.
Pinned inside the lining was a tiny black plastic object about the size of my thumbnail.
For a moment, nobody spoke.
I stared at it.
"What is that?"
Luis carefully pulled it free.
"I noticed the edge of it when your dress was hanging in the bridal room."
My mother frowned.
"You touched her dress?"
"No, ma'am."
Luis swallowed.
"I thought it was part of the alterations until I saw Daniel go into the bridal room."
My skin went cold beneath the paint.
Daniel said, "That's bullshit."
Luis looked at him.
"You were in there for almost four minutes."
"I was looking for Anna."
"I told you she was downstairs."
"You don't know what I was doing."
"No."
Luis held up the black object.
"But about twenty minutes later, I saw you come back out carrying that bucket."
Claire made a soft sound.
Daniel turned on her immediately.
"Don't."
That single word silenced her.
I looked at my sister.
She was crying now, but she wasn't looking at me.
She was looking at the device in Luis's palm.
"You know what it is," I said.
Claire shook her head.
"Claire."
"I don't."
"Look at me."
She did.
We had the same gray eyes, though hers had always seemed lighter.
When we were children, strangers asked whether we were twins even though she was three years older.
She had hated that.
I had secretly loved it.
Now she could barely hold my gaze.
"What is it?"
Her chin trembled.
"I think it's a recorder."
My mother sat down.
Mark whispered, "What?"
Daniel moved toward the aisle.
My father blocked him.
"You're staying."
"Get out of my way."
"Not until my daughter knows what you did."
Daniel gave him a contemptuous smile.
"Which daughter?"
My father hit him.
It was a terrible punch.
Dad caught Daniel mostly on the cheek instead of the jaw, hurt his wrist, and immediately cursed while Daniel staggered into a chair.
Under any other circumstances, I might have laughed.
Instead, I watched Daniel straighten slowly.
His cheek reddened.
"Everybody needs to stop hitting everybody," I said.
Nobody argued.
Luis turned the recorder over in his hand.
"I don't know whether it was running."
"It was," Claire said.
Daniel closed his eyes.
The silence that followed felt different from the one after the paint.
That silence had belonged to shock.
This one belonged to recognition.
I took one step toward my sister.
"How do you know?"
Claire pressed her fingers against her mouth.
"Because he told me it would be."
"Why?"
She began shaking her head before I finished.
"Why, Claire?"
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"I can't do this here."
I looked down at myself.
