Chương 1
"The first sound after Olivia Sterling shoved my parents into the pool was laughter.
It came from somewhere behind the champagne tower, one startled bark that died almost as soon as it escaped, but by then the damage had already spread across the terrace.
My mother surfaced beneath a drift of white rose petals, gasping as her blue dress ballooned around her.
My father came up beside her and caught her under one arm before she could slip against the tiled edge.
For half a second, nobody moved.
Then chairs scraped, somebody swore, and three dozen wedding guests reached for their phones with the strange reflex people had developed for disasters that belonged to someone else.
Olivia Sterling remained at the edge of the pool.
She did not look shocked by what she had done.
She smoothed the front of her silver dress, glanced down at my parents struggling in the water, and said, “I have never seen such a miserable, poor family.”
My father looked up at her without answering.
That frightened me more than if he had shouted.
Daniel Bennett could argue with a transmission, a city inspector, or a customer who insisted an alternator was “basically the same thing as a battery,” but when he was truly angry, he became very quiet.
My mother put both hands on the pool ledge.
Her wedding shoes were gone.
One floated near the filter, turning slowly beneath a cluster of petals.
“Dad,” I said, though I was too far away to help him yet.
Someone finally moved before I did.
My cousin Mark hurried forward, dropped to one knee, and reached for my mother.
I turned to Ethan.
He stood beside me in the tuxedo we had chosen together six months earlier, holding a champagne glass he had not touched.
“Say something.”
His eyes moved from me to his mother and then toward the guests.
That tiny survey of the room told me he was calculating embarrassment before injury.
“Clara,” he murmured.
“Say something to her.”
He swallowed.
“Don’t make a scene.”
For eighteen months, I had translated Ethan Sterling into a kinder language than the one he actually spoke.
Ignore her had meant he wanted peace.
She doesn’t know how she sounds had meant he recognized cruelty.
I’ll talk to her had meant he would eventually establish boundaries.
She grew up differently had meant money had distorted Olivia’s sense of normal behavior but had not destroyed her capacity for decency.
Don’t make a scene required no translation at all.
I stared at him long enough that his expression changed.
He seemed to understand that something had happened, although not yet what.
Behind us, the quartet had stopped playing.
One violinist still held her bow above the strings.
“Clara, come on,” Ethan said.
“My parents are in the pool.”
“I can see that.”
“Your mother pushed them.”
“I saw what happened.”
The calmness of his answer landed harder than a denial would have.
Mark and one of the caterers pulled my mother onto the terrace.
Water poured from her dress and spread across the pale stone.
She immediately turned around to help my father, because that was what my mother did when something terrible happened to her.
She found somebody else to take care of.
“I’m okay,” she told Mark.
“You’re bleeding,” he said.
She looked down as though the blood on her palm belonged to somebody else.
“It’s just a scrape.”
My father climbed out without assistance and removed his soaked jacket.
He had borrowed it from his younger brother because the only suit in his closet had been purchased for my high school graduation, and the shoulders had stopped fitting years ago.
I knew that because I had called him two weeks earlier and offered to buy him something.
He had laughed and said, “For one afternoon?”
Then he had added, more softly, “Spend your money on your honeymoon, kiddo.”
Olivia had noticed the jacket within seven minutes of my parents arriving.
“Vintage?” she had asked.
My mother, who had spent three Saturdays searching clearance racks for the blue dress now dripping onto the terrace, had smiled as if the question were sincere.
“No, mine is new.”
Olivia had blinked.
“I meant his.”
My father had pretended to be fascinated by a tray of crab cakes.
I had seen the exchange.
I had also seen Ethan see it.
He had kissed my temple afterward and whispered, “Ignore her.”
I had.
That was the part I could no longer place entirely at his feet.
“Mom.”
I crossed the terrace and took my mother’s injured hand.
Her mascara had begun to run beneath one eye.
“Oh, sweetheart, don’t,” she said.
“Don’t what?”
“Cry.”
I touched my cheek and discovered she was right.
“This is your wedding.”
“No.”
The word came out before I had decided to say it.
My mother went still.
My father looked at me.
Across the terrace, Ethan set down his champagne glass.
“Clara.”
Olivia gave an irritated sigh.
“Can somebody please get them towels before they ruin the photographs?”
My father turned.
Mark caught his arm.
“Uncle Dan.”
“I’m fine.”
“You have the face.”
“What face?”
“The face Aunt Susan says means bail money.”
Despite everything, my mother made a small sound that might have become a laugh on another day.
My father looked at her, and some of the violence left his posture.
A server arrived with white towels from the pool house.
My mother accepted one and immediately apologized for dripping on his shoes.
The young man stared at her.
“Ma’am, please don’t apologize.”
Olivia heard him.
Her mouth tightened.
Perhaps that was the first moment she sensed that the room was no longer arranged the way she expected.
Not everyone was looking at my parents.
Some were looking at her.
Ethan reached me and lowered his voice.
“Can we go inside for five minutes?”
“Why?”
“To talk privately.”
“You had a chance to talk publicly.”
May you like
His jaw shifted.
“My mother lost her temper.”
