Chương 3
“You pushed an old woman.”
“I know.”
“You pushed an employee.”
“I know.”
“You pushed an employee because you thought she got something on your dress.”
“I know.”
“Then what do you want me to say?”
Claire looked away.
“That I’m not a monster.”
Tessa sat back on her heels.
“I don’t think you’re a monster.”
Claire’s shoulders loosened a fraction.
“I think you did something monstrous.”
They looked at each other.
“That’s worse.”
“No,” Tessa said. “It isn’t.”
Claire stood too quickly.
The room shifted around her.
“I need to find Ethan.”
“He asked for space.”
“You talked to him?”
“Melissa did.”
“When?”
“Ten minutes ago.”
“And nobody told me?”
“You were changing your shoes.”
Claire looked down.
She was wearing hotel slippers.
Her white bridal heels stood beside the vanity.
The left one had a faint champagne mark across the toe.
She had forgotten taking them off.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Tessa.”
“I actually don’t.”
Claire reached for her phone.
Thirty-eight notifications.
She had silenced it before photographs.
Her mother had called six times.
Her father twice.
There were messages from bridesmaids, cousins, vendors, and two people she had not spoken to in years.
She opened Ethan’s contact.
No new message.
She called.
It rang until voicemail.
Again.
Voicemail.
Tessa watched her.
“Don’t call a third time.”
Claire called a third time.
Voicemail.
She threw the phone onto the bed.
Tessa flinched.
Claire immediately hated herself for that too.
“Sorry.”
“For the phone?”
“For making you flinch.”
Tessa studied her.
“Claire, what happened today?”
“You saw it.”
“I saw the end of it.”
“There isn’t some secret explanation.”
“I didn’t ask for one.”
Claire sat on the edge of the bed.
The wedding gown spread around her.
For months she had imagined photographs of this dress.
She had never imagined sitting in it while her best friend looked at her as though deciding whether she knew her.
“I couldn’t get anything under control.”
Tessa waited.
Claire rubbed her forehead.
“Everything kept going wrong.”
“The flowers?”
“The flowers, the road, my mom, Ethan acting weird, the weather—”
“The weather is snow. We’re in the mountains.”
“I know.”
“You chose a mountain wedding in February.”
“I know.”
Tessa’s voice softened.
“None of those things explain Margaret.”
Claire looked toward the windows.
Snow drifted beyond the glass.
“I thought she was looking at me like I was ridiculous.”
“Was she?”
“I don’t know.”
That answer came more quietly.
Tessa picked up the discarded tape and folded it over itself.
“What did she actually do?”
“She kept trying to clean the dress.”
“Before that.”
Claire searched backward through the morning.
Margaret had been near the champagne table.
She had moved a heater because the wind was blowing smoke toward the flowers.
She had offered Claire water.
Claire had refused.
Later Margaret had asked whether Claire wanted a napkin under one of the champagne glasses during photographs.
Claire had said no.
Then a guest had backed into the table.
A glass had tilted.
Margaret had caught the tray.
Most of it.
Some champagne had splashed onto the stone.
Claire had stepped directly toward it.
Margaret had reached for her arm.
Not grabbed.
Reached.
“Careful, honey.”
Honey.
Claire had spun around.
“Excuse me?”
Margaret had apologized.
Then she had crouched to keep the wet hem from dragging through the spill.
Claire had seen the stain.
After that, memory became noise.
“She called me honey.”
Tessa stared at her.
“That’s what you have?”
“No.”
“It sounded like that was what you had.”
“I said no.”
Tessa nodded.
“Okay.”
Claire hated the gentleness.
“Stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Talking to me like I’m unstable.”
“I’m talking quietly because there are sixty wedding guests outside this door.”
“Seventy-three.”
Tessa stared.
Claire pressed both hands over her face.
“God.”
For a moment neither woman spoke.
Then Tessa said, “You know what the weirdest thing is?”
Claire lowered her hands.
“You spent a year telling me you loved Ethan because he made you feel like you didn’t have to perform.”
Claire looked at her.
“And today you performed for everybody except him.”
Downstairs, Ethan sat beside his mother in the lodge manager’s office while a paramedic examined her wrist.
Margaret had refused an ambulance.
She had also refused to let Ethan cancel the wedding.
He had ignored both positions with equal efficiency.
“Rotate it.”
Margaret rotated her wrist.
“Pain?”
“A little.”
“Here?”
The paramedic pressed gently.
“Yes.”
“Scale of one to ten?”
“Three.”
“Mom.”
“Four.”
The paramedic glanced between them.
“Swelling’s mild. I don’t see anything that screams fracture, but given your age and the fall, I’d recommend an X-ray.”
“I’m sixty-seven, not a Ming vase.”
The paramedic smiled.
Ethan didn’t.
Margaret noticed.
“You used to laugh.”
“Not today.”
“That’s dramatic.”
“You nearly fell into a fire.”
“I did not nearly fall into a fire.”
“Your coat was two feet from it.”
“Which is not in it.”
“Mom.”
“All right.”
The paramedic wrapped her wrist.
Ethan watched every turn of the bandage.
Margaret watched him watching.
When the paramedic left to speak with the lodge manager, she said, “You shouldn’t have dropped your ring.”
Ethan leaned back.
“Can we not?”
“We absolutely can.”
“She assaulted you.”
“She lost her temper.”
“She put her hands on you.”
“Yes.”
“You hit stone.”
“I noticed.”
He looked at her.
Margaret sighed.
“I’m not defending what she did.”
“You are.”
“I’m telling you not to decide your entire marriage while you’re angry.”
“I’m not angry.”
“That thing you do with your jaw says otherwise.”
He unclenched it.
She smiled faintly.
“There.”
“Don’t.”
“I’m your mother. I’m allowed.”
“You showed up at my wedding dressed as a server.”
“That was perhaps not my best plan.”
“Perhaps?”
“I wanted to help.”
“You were invited as my mother.”
“And Claire had never met me.”
“That wasn’t your fault.”
Margaret looked down.
There it was.
The subject they had been circling for eleven months.
Ethan’s father had died eighteen months earlier.
Heart attack.
May you like
Fast.
Unfair.
