Chương 2
Graham was halfway across the room.
“Enough for what?”
Millie twisted the bouquet ribbon around one finger.
“To practice.”
“Practice what?”
She looked up at me, confused again.
“Being my mommy.”
Graham reached us.
“There are my two favorite girls.”
His voice sounded normal.
He touched my shoulder, but I stepped away before I could pretend I had not.
His hand remained suspended for a beat.
Then he lowered it.
“You okay?”
I looked at Millie.
She looked at him.
Whatever he saw in her face changed his.
“What happened?”
I stood.
The sudden movement made me lightheaded.
“I need some air.”
“Okay.”
His eyes remained on mine.
“I’ll come with you.”
“No.”
The word came out sharper than I intended.
A woman at the nearest table glanced over.
I smiled at her automatically.
It was ridiculous what social reflex could survive.
Your husband might have a secret woman teaching herself to become his daughter’s mother, but you still didn’t want Cousin Marjorie to think you were causing a scene before the cake had been cut.
I lowered my voice.
“I just need five minutes.”
Graham studied me.
“Did Millie say something?”
There it was.
Not What’s wrong.
Not Are you sick.
Not Did somebody upset you.
Did Millie say something?
My fear hardened into something else.
“Why would you ask that?”
Millie began rocking slightly from heel to toe.
Graham saw it.
His jaw tightened.
“Because you two were whispering, and now you look like you’re about to pass out.”
“That’s your explanation?”
“For asking a question?”
“Yes.”
He glanced around us.
“Rachel, can we not do whatever this is in the middle of the reception?”
Whatever this is.
Three hours earlier, he had promised me honesty in front of seventy-three people.
I remembered the exact expression on his face when he said it.
Not the words.
The expression.
His eyes had gone wet, and he had laughed under his breath because he was embarrassed by it.
I had loved him for being embarrassed.
Now I wondered how much of a person could be genuine while another part was lying.
“I’m going outside.”
I turned toward Millie.
“Stay with Daddy for a minute, okay?”
She caught my hand.
“But you’re coming back.”
It was not quite a question.
I bent and kissed her forehead.
“Yes.”
I had no idea whether that was true in any meaningful sense.
The hallway outside the ballroom smelled faintly of lemon cleaner and coffee.
I walked past the coatroom, past the framed watercolor prints I had barely noticed when we toured the venue six months earlier, and pushed through the side door into the small courtyard.
The evening air struck my damp skin.
My veil shifted behind me.
I sat on a stone bench because my knees had started shaking.
For several seconds, I did nothing.
I stared at a crushed paper cup beside a planter.
Somebody had missed the trash can by three feet.
That stupid cup became the easiest thing in the world to look at.
The door opened behind me.
I didn’t turn.
“Five minutes,” I said.
Graham closed the door quietly.
“I gave you forty seconds.”
Despite everything, a bitter laugh escaped me.
“That sounds like you.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you always think you can negotiate the terms after agreeing to them.”
He stood several feet away.
I could hear him breathing.
“Rachel.”
“Who lives in the blue house?”
Silence.
There are silences that come from confusion.
There are silences that come from people trying not to say the wrong thing.
This was the second kind.
I turned.
His face had lost its color.
“Where did you hear that?”
I laughed again, but nothing about it felt funny.
“You know exactly where.”
He looked toward the closed door.
“Millie told you.”
“She told me you take her to visit a woman who is practicing being her mother.”
His eyes shut briefly.
That tiny movement hurt more than denial would have.
“You told your six-year-old daughter to keep another woman secret from me.”
“It isn’t what you think.”
“I don’t know what I think yet.”
I stood, gathering my dress in both hands.
“So help me.”
He rubbed the back of his neck.
The gesture was familiar.
He did it when bills surprised him, when his mother called with bad news, when he had to tell Millie she couldn’t have something.
“I was going to tell you.”
“Today?”
“No.”
“Tomorrow?”
He didn’t answer.
“Next year?”
“Rachel, please.”
“Who is she?”
His eyes moved past me toward the darkening parking lot.
That frightened me more than anything Millie had said.
Graham had always been good at eye contact.
Even during arguments.
Especially during arguments.
“Her name is Nora.”
I waited.
He swallowed.
“And?”
“And Claire knew her.”
“Claire knew a woman you’re now secretly taking Millie to see?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He ran both hands over his face.
When he lowered them, he looked older than he had inside the ballroom.
“Because Nora believes Millie belongs with her.”
I stared at him.
“Belongs with her how?”
He looked at me then.
Fully.
There was fear in his face.
Not guilt alone.
Fear.
“Before Claire died, she made a promise that I never intended to keep.”
The courtyard door opened, and Graham’s sister Beth stepped halfway outside.
“There you are,” she said, then stopped when she saw us.
Her gaze moved from my face to Graham’s.
Something changed in her expression.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
My stomach dropped all over again.
Beth quietly closed the door behind her.
“You told Rachel,” she said.
“No,” Graham answered.
His voice sounded exhausted.
“Millie did.”
Beth whispered something under her breath.
I looked from one of them to the other.
“You knew too?”
Beth did not answer fast enough.
May you like
The wedding music continued through the wall behind us, muffled now, while the two people I had trusted most in Graham’s family stood in front of me sharing a secret neither had planned to reveal.
I turned to Graham.
