Chương 2
Claire frowned.
“What cake?”
“The miniature one.”
Claire looked at the table.
“The kids’ cake?”
Margaret’s mouth tightened.
“Yes.”
Claire blinked.
“That wasn’t my wedding cake.”
“She deliberately ruined it.”
Emma made a small sound.
Laura felt it more than heard it.
Claire noticed.
“Emma?”
“I dropped it.”
Her voice was barely audible.
Claire came closer, gathering her skirt in one hand.
“Okay.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Emma, it’s okay.”
“No, it isn’t,” Margaret said.
Claire turned.
“Grandma.”
“The child has to learn that actions have consequences.”
Laura laughed once.
It was not a pleasant laugh.
Margaret looked at her.
Laura shook her head. “Not today.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m taking my daughter home.”
Claire’s face fell. “Aunt Laura—”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, please. Don’t leave because of this.”
Emma was staring at the floor.
Laura crouched again.
“Em, do you want to stay?”
Margaret made a sound of disbelief.
Laura ignored her.
Emma looked toward Claire. Then at the other children across the room. Two had retreated behind a table, watching with enormous eyes. One of them, a boy in a gray vest, still held a plastic dinosaur somebody had apparently allowed him to bring to a formal wedding.
Emma wiped under her nose.
“I want to go home.”
“Okay.”
Margaret said, “Of course she does.”
David turned so sharply that his jacket pulled across his shoulders.
“Stop.”
His mother looked at him.
“You’re embarrassing yourself.”
“No,” David said. “I think we crossed that bridge around the cake.”
It was such a David sentence—dry, slightly late, offered when he was frightened enough to become funny—that under any other circumstances Laura might have smiled.
She didn’t.
Claire reached for Emma.
“Can I hug you?”
Emma looked at Laura first.
Laura nodded.
Claire bent down, and Emma went into her arms. Claire whispered something Laura could not hear. Emma nodded against the wedding dress.
Across the pavilion, the groom, Nathan, was speaking quietly to the bandleader. Music started again—not the planned dance number, just something instrumental and soft enough to give guests permission to stop staring.
It did not work immediately.
Laura collected Emma’s cardigan from the back of her chair.
Her hands were shaking.
She had not noticed until then.
David noticed.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Good answer.”
“Please don’t.”
“Right.”
He looked toward Margaret.
Their mother stood with the towel held against her waist while Aunt Susan tried to help without getting chocolate on herself.
David lowered his voice.
“I’ll drive you.”
“I have my car.”
“You’ve been drinking?”
“Half a glass of champagne two hours ago.”
“Okay.”
“I can drive.”
“I know.”
There was something in his tone Laura did not have room for.
She put the cardigan around Emma’s shoulders.
Claire stood.
“I’m so sorry.”
Laura looked at her niece. “This is your wedding. You don’t apologize for other adults.”
Claire glanced at Margaret.
It was quick.
Too quick.
Laura saw it anyway.
She had seen that glance before.
Not from Claire.
From herself.
For years.
The glance measured Margaret’s location, mood, proximity, and likely response before the person making it decided what could safely be said.
Laura touched Claire’s arm.
“We’ll talk later.”
Claire nodded.
Margaret called across the room, “You always do this.”
Laura closed her eyes.
David muttered, “Jesus Christ.”
Margaret was coming toward them now.
The towel had been discarded. Chocolate covered the champagne silk like a wound somebody had designed for a comedy.
“You create a spectacle,” Margaret said, “and then you leave everyone else to clean it up.”
Laura turned.
“Mom, don’t.”
“You’ve spent fifteen years doing exactly that.”
“Not here.”
“Why not here? You chose here.”
“I chose nothing about this.”
“You put your hands on me.”
“And you terrified my child.”
“Because I spoke to her?”
“Because you told her she doesn’t belong in her own family.”
Margaret’s face hardened.
“I told her she should learn some respect.”
“That isn’t what she said.”
“She’s eight.”
“Yes.”
The word landed harder than Laura expected.
“Yes, Mom. She’s eight.”
Margaret glanced around.
Guests were pretending again. It was almost impressive. A man Laura recognized from David’s law firm had become fascinated by the condensation on his water glass.
Margaret lowered her voice.
“You want to discuss family history? Fine. We can discuss it. But do not rewrite what happened because your daughter is watching.”
Laura stared at her.
There it was.
Not the whole thing.
Just the door to it.
The old accusation.
The one Margaret never made directly when witnesses were present.
David stepped forward.
“Enough.”
Margaret looked at him. “You stay out of this.”
“It’s my daughter’s wedding.”
“Exactly.”
“And you just made an eight-year-old cry at it.”
“I did not make her cry.”
Emma sniffed behind Laura.
David looked at his mother.
Margaret’s jaw moved.
For the first time, something uncertain crossed her face.
It disappeared almost immediately.
Laura took Emma’s hand.
“We’re leaving.”
This time Margaret did not stop them.
Outside, the rain was colder than it had looked through the glass.
Emma ran the few yards to Laura’s rented SUV with the cardigan pulled over her head. Laura followed, shoes slipping slightly on wet stone.
Inside the car, neither of them spoke.
Laura started the engine.
The windshield wipers began their steady work.
Emma sat in the back seat, because she was eight and because ordinary rules remained ordinary rules even after your grandmother told you that you did not belong in the family.
Laura looked at her in the mirror.
“Seat belt.”
Emma clicked it.
Laura put the car into reverse.
“Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“Did I ruin the wedding?”
Laura put the car back into park.
Rain swept across the windshield.
“No.”
“But everybody stopped.”
“That wasn’t because of you.”
“I dropped the cake.”
“It was a cake.”
“It was for the wedding.”
“It was a little cake for the kids’ table.”
“Grandma said it cost three hundred dollars.”
Laura turned around.
“She told you that?”
Emma nodded.
“When?”
“Before you came.”
May you like
Laura waited.
Emma picked at the edge of her cardigan.
