Chương 13
“With Emily?”
“With the whole thing.”
I looked down at the parking lot.
A man in a suit was standing beside his car trying to scrape something off his windshield with a credit card.
“Are they still coming Saturday?”
“Most of them.”
“Most?”
“Mike.”
“Who isn’t?”
“I don’t know yet.”
The wedding had begun shrinking without either of us touching it.
The idea sat badly in my stomach.
Not because I cared about numbers.
Because Emily had been right.
She might walk into that church feeling everyone had already discussed her when she was not in the room.
When I went inside, she was awake.
She looked at my face and immediately sat up.
“What now?”
“Dad called.”
She pulled the blanket around her shoulders.
I told her.
All of it.
The fake texts collapsing.
The canceled dinner.
The relatives who were suddenly uncomfortable.
Emily listened quietly.
When I finished, she asked, “Do you want to go see Ashley?”
I hesitated.
“Yes.”
Her eyes lowered.
“But I don’t want to leave you here wondering what’s happening.”
“I’m not asking you not to go.”
“I know.”
She rubbed sleep from one eye.
“I think you should.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
I sat on the edge of the coffee table.
“Why?”
“Because if you don’t, you’ll spend Saturday watching every door and wondering whether she hates you.”
I almost objected.
She continued.
“And because you love her.”
There was no accusation in the sentence.
That made it harder.
“I do.”
“I know.”
“Does that bother you?”
“Yes.”
I looked down.
She reached out and touched my knee.
“But it would bother me more if you stopped loving somebody on command.”
I looked at her.
She shrugged.
“I just need you to stop confusing love with rescue.”
Rachel was right.
Emily was right.
Everybody suddenly had excellent advice except me.
“I’ll go after breakfast.”
Emily nodded.
“And Michael?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t negotiate me.”
I felt my chest tighten.
“I won’t.”
“Don’t tell her I’m more forgiving than I am.”
“I won’t.”
“Don’t promise I’ll talk to her.”
“I won’t.”
She studied my face for another second.
“Okay.”
I drove to my parents’ house at nine-thirty.
Ashley’s car was in the driveway.
Nathan’s was gone.
Mom opened the door.
She looked older than she had two days earlier.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
She stepped aside.
I entered.
The house smelled like coffee and the cinnamon air freshener Mom plugged into every room once relatives started arriving.
Several wedding gift bags were stacked along the wall near the dining room.
For some reason, seeing them made the whole week feel absurd.
Mom followed me into the living room.
“She’s upstairs.”
“Okay.”
“She didn’t sleep much.”
I looked at her.
“Mom.”
“I’m just telling you.”
“I know.”
She pressed her lips together.
Then she nodded.
“I’ll be in the kitchen.”
I went upstairs.
Ashley’s bedroom door was open.
She sat cross-legged on the floor beside her bed.
Her phone lay face down near her knee.
She had been crying.
Not theatrically.
Her skin was blotchy.
Her hair was tied badly at the back.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then she said, “Did Emily send you?”
“No.”
Ashley looked away.
“Of course not.”
I remained by the door.
“You asked Dad to have me come.”
“I changed my mind.”
“Okay.”
I turned slightly.
“Wait.”
I stopped.
She stared at the carpet.
“I didn’t make fake texts.”
I said nothing.
“I edited some.”
“That is making fake texts.”
“No.”
Her head came up.
“The conversations happened.”
“Then show me the originals.”
She looked down again.
“They weren’t exactly the same.”
“Then they didn’t happen the way you showed Mom.”
Her jaw tightened.
“You already hate me.”
“No.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I don’t.”
“You should.”
I did not answer.
She wiped her cheek roughly.
“I thought she was going to take you away.”
There it was again.
This time without an audience.
“I’m thirty-one, Ash.”
“I know.”
“You were never entitled to keep me in the same place.”
“I know that now.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“You know you’re in trouble now.”
She flinched.
“That isn’t the same thing.”
Her eyes filled again.
“I missed you.”
“I missed you too.”
She looked up quickly.
The truth surprised both of us.
I sat on the desk chair.
“You stopped calling.”
“You stopped answering.”
“I was working.”
“You always said that.”
“Sometimes I was with Emily.”
“Exactly.”
“That’s what happens when people build lives.”
Ashley picked at a loose thread on her sweatpants.
“I thought if she wasn’t around, things would go back.”
The sentence was so childish I almost did not know what to do with it.
“You threw her wedding dress into a pool.”
“I know.”
“To make her leave?”
“No.”
“To make me choose?”
Her face tightened.
“I wanted her to lose it.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“I wanted everyone to see.”
“See what?”
“That she was fake.”
“She cried because you ruined something her dead mother helped choose.”
“I know.”
“No, you knew that before.”
Ashley covered her face.
“I know.”
That was the first time she sounded ashamed rather than cornered.
I let the silence stay.
She lowered her hands.
“I thought she’d scream at me.”
“And?”
“And then everyone would see how she really is.”
“How is she really?”
Ashley looked at me.
“I don’t know.”
The answer came quietly.
Honestly.
For the first time, perhaps.
She swallowed.
“I just wanted you to be mad at her instead.”
I sat very still.
The whole elaborate mess reduced itself to that small, ugly sentence.
Not hatred.
Not some secret revelation.
A nineteen-year-old trying to force her brother backward.
“You could have talked to me.”
“I know.”
“You could have said you missed me.”
“I know.”
“You could have asked me to spend time with you.”
Her chin trembled.
“I thought you’d say no.”
“Maybe I would have.”
She winced.
“That doesn’t make what you did okay.”
May you like
“I know.”
I looked at the phone beside her.
