Chương 5
“Where is Rebecca?” Carol asked.
“Gone.”
“Are you all right?”
“No.”
Carol nodded as if this were the only acceptable answer.
Lily looked up.
“Are you mad at me?”
Daniel sat beside her.
“No.”
“You’re mad.”
“Very.”
“At me?”
“No.”
She considered that.
“Dad said he messed everything up.”
“Your dad messed up some things.”
Aaron heard him from the back.
Daniel did not lower his voice.
“So did Rebecca.”
Lily stared at the water.
“And me?”
“You were put in the middle of something adults should have handled.”
“I chose to say it.”
“I know.”
“I thought if I just gave you the envelope, maybe you’d open it later.”
Daniel waited.
“But then the music started.”
She swallowed.
“And I thought maybe later would be too late.”
Daniel looked at his niece.
He wanted to tell her she had saved him.
The phrase formed instantly.
He did not say it.
A seven-year-old did not need to become the hero of an adult disaster. Heroes were expected to keep doing heroic things.
Instead he said, “I’m glad you told me the truth. I wish you never had to be the one who told it.”
Lily’s eyes watered.
“Is the wedding my fault?”
“No.”
“Would you be married if I didn’t do it?”
Daniel looked toward the empty altar.
“Maybe.”
“Then how is it not my fault?”
Carol inhaled as though she might answer.
Daniel touched her wrist.
He kept his eyes on Lily.
“Because there’s a difference between causing a problem and revealing one.”
Lily thought about that.
“So Rebecca caused it?”
Daniel almost said yes.
Then he remembered Aaron at thirty, punching a cabinet beside a frightened twenty-four-year-old woman’s head.
“A lot of adults made choices that got us here.”
“Did you?”
The question made Carol look at him.
Daniel rubbed his beard.
“I’m sure I did. I just don’t know all of mine yet.”
Lily accepted this more easily than any reassurance.
Children did not always need certainty. Adults were the ones addicted to it.
Aaron approached slowly.
“Can I take her home?”
Daniel looked at him.
“Where?”
“My apartment.”
“You’re staying in town?”
“Hotel. Tonight. Then home tomorrow.”
Lily looked between them.
“I want to go with Dad.”
Daniel nodded.
“Okay.”
Carol did not like it.
He could feel that without looking.
Aaron offered Lily his hand.
She took it.
At the door she turned.
“Uncle Daniel?”
“Yeah?”
“Your suit still looks nice.”
Daniel looked down at the gray vest, the pale-blue shirt, the navy tie he had spent an absurd amount of time choosing because Rebecca disliked ties that photographed black.
“Thank you.”
“You should keep it.”
Aaron made a sound that might have been a laugh and immediately looked guilty.
Lily tugged him toward the doors.
Daniel watched them leave.
Carol waited until the chapel was quiet.
Then she said, “I could kill him.”
“Which one?”
She stared at him.
Daniel almost smiled.
It lasted less than a second.
Carol reached for his hand.
He let her hold it.
At thirty-five, Daniel had thought humiliation would feel hot.
It did not.
It felt administrative.
He spent the next two hours canceling things.
The reception venue already had two hundred plated meals prepared. The bakery had delivered a four-tier cake to the hotel ballroom. The band wanted to know whether they should pack up. A driver needed instructions about a car decorated with ribbon. Someone from the florist asked what should happen to the centerpieces.
Daniel answered because answering was easier than thinking.
Donate the meals if possible.
Send the flowers to the nursing home the coordinator suggested.
Pay the band.
Pay everybody.
No, there would be no shortened reception.
No, they did not want the cake.
Yes, the staff could have it.
At three seventeen in the afternoon, Daniel sat alone in his apartment wearing his wedding suit with his tie loosened and one shoe off.
He had forgotten why he had removed it.
His phone showed ninety-six unread messages.
He put it facedown on the coffee table.
A delivery truck backed up somewhere below his window, beeping in steady intervals. A dog barked. Someone in the neighboring apartment dropped what sounded like a pan.
Daniel stared at the wall.
He had expected his home to feel different after marriage.
Rebecca’s things were already there. A green ceramic mug. Hair ties on the bathroom sink. Two dresses in his closet. A jar of expensive honey she liked on toast. A half-read novel facedown beside the bed despite his repeated complaint that it damaged the spine.
Nothing had changed.
Everything had changed.
He got up and put his shoe back on.
Then he made coffee he did not want.
His hands needed instructions.
At four ten his mother called.
He answered on the fifth ring.
“Have you eaten?”
“No.”
“I’m coming over.”
“Please don’t.”
“Daniel.”
“I mean it.”
Silence.
Then, softer, “Okay.”
He leaned against the kitchen counter.
“Is Lily all right?”
“She texted me from Aaron’s phone.”
“What did she say?”
“That she wants to know whether canceled weddings mean the cake gets canceled too.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“Tell her no.”
“I told her I’d investigate.”
“Good.”
Carol waited.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I should have known about Aaron and that woman.”
“Rebecca.”
“Fine. Rebecca.”
“He hid it from you too.”
“I’m his mother.”
“That hasn’t stopped him before.”
Carol became quiet.
Daniel regretted the sentence.
“Sorry.”
“No. You’re right.”
He heard a drawer open on her end.
His mother always reorganized kitchen drawers when anxious.
“She was good with Lily,” Carol said.
“Rebecca?”
“Yes.”
Daniel looked at the green mug.
“She was.”
“I liked her.”
“I know.”
“I still do a little.”
“Mom.”
“I’m telling you because pretending I suddenly hated her would be stupid.”
Daniel appreciated that more than he could say.
“I still love her.”
Carol stopped moving.
It was the first time Daniel had said it since the chapel.
“Then tonight is going to be bad.”
May you like
“Yeah.”
“Do not call her while you’re this angry.”
