Chương 3
“Receptionist first time. Second time I got transferred to voicemail.”
“I never heard it.”
“I figured maybe you deleted it.”
“I didn’t.”
Thomas nodded slowly.
“That was kind of the problem. Everybody figured something.”
Rachel stared at him.
His roughness was familiar. Not the voice itself. The way he refused to decorate a sentence. When she was a child, he had never told her a scraped knee was fine. He would examine it and say, “Well, that’s going to hurt for a while.”
She had hated that.
Later, after her mother died, he had become impossible in other ways. Unreachable, then overwhelmingly present. Apologetic at breakfast and furious by dinner. He had promised sobriety so many times that the promise itself became a form of noise.
Rachel folded her arms.
“How long have you been sober?”
“Seven years, four months.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
The answer stopped her.
Thomas rubbed his palms on his overcoat.
“I expect you to decide what you believe after you know what happened.”
Another knock came.
This time nobody spoke before the door opened.
Ethan stepped inside.
Megan moved between him and Rachel immediately.
“Not a great time.”
“Megan.”
“Don’t Megan me.”
Rachel said, “How much?”
Ethan stopped.
Rachel’s voice remained almost calm.
“How much were you paid?”
“Rachel, what Thomas thinks happened—”
Thomas laughed under his breath.
Ethan looked toward him.
Thomas said, “Careful.”
Rachel stood.
“Don’t talk to him. Talk to me.”
Ethan’s shoulders lowered.
For the first time since Rachel had known him, he seemed unable to find the version of himself that belonged in the room.
“It wasn’t payment for telling you he was dead.”
Rachel felt something cold enter her chest.
“That is a very specific sentence.”
“I need you to understand what your grandmother believed she was doing.”
“My grandmother is dead.”
“I know.”
“So you’re going to let her explain it for you?”
“No.”
“How much?”
Ethan looked away.
“Seventy-five thousand.”
Megan made a soft choking sound.
Rachel did not move.
Thomas stared at Ethan with an expression almost free of anger now.
That was somehow worse.
Rachel said, “Who paid you?”
“Margaret’s foundation.”
“For what?”
“Consulting.”
Megan laughed.
“You were dating her granddaughter.”
“It wasn’t—”
“Then what were you consulting on?”
Ethan’s eyes closed.
Rachel whispered, “My father.”
Silence.
Thomas reached down and lifted his leather bag.
“I’m going.”
Rachel looked at him.
“What?”
“You don’t need both of us in here.”
“You walked into my wedding and blew up my life, and now you’re going?”
His face tightened.
“I stopped a wedding.”
“You think that’s smaller?”
“No.”
“Then don’t leave.”
He stayed.
Rachel turned back to Ethan.
“Start talking.”
Ethan looked toward the open doorway.
“Not here.”
“This room good enough for me to find out my dead father isn’t dead, but not good enough for your explanation?”
“Rachel, there are people outside with phones.”
She stared at him.
And there it was.
A tiny piece of Ethan she recognized.
Reputation before discomfort.
Control before truth.
“You’re worried about phones?”
“I’m worried about you.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I am.”
“You told me my father died.”
“I thought I was protecting you.”
Thomas looked at the ceiling.
Ethan snapped, “You don’t get to make a face at that.”
Thomas lowered his eyes.
“No?”
“You disappeared on her.”
“I know.”
“You were drunk for years.”
“I know.”
“You showed up at her college graduation half loaded and screamed at her aunt in a parking lot.”
Thomas’s jaw worked.
“I know.”
“You called Rachel at two in the morning because you needed money.”
“I know.”
“You want to stand there now like some betrayed saint?”
“No.”
The simplicity of the answer unsettled Ethan more than an argument would have.
Thomas continued.
“I was a terrible father for a while. Doesn’t make you less of a liar.”
Ethan looked back at Rachel.
She could see the opening he wanted. Thomas’s history. The reasonable concerns. The years Rachel herself had spent saying she never wanted to see her father again.
Three years earlier those arguments might have worked.
Three minutes earlier they might have.
But Ethan had told her Thomas was dead.
There was no protective interpretation that could make the lie small enough to step over.
Rachel said, “Get out.”
“Rach—”
“Don’t call me that.”
His face changed.
She had never forbidden him anything intimate before.
“Please.”
She picked up her wedding dress from where Megan had folded it across the back of a chair and threw it at him.
Ethan caught it against his chest reflexively.
For one absurd second, he stood holding seven thousand dollars of French lace like laundry.
“Take it.”
“What?”
“Take everything. The dress, the flowers, the reception, the stupid ice sculpture your mother ordered without asking anybody. Go downstairs and explain to the guests. Or don’t. I don’t care.”
“Where are you going?”
Rachel looked at Megan.
“Your place?”
“For as long as you want.”
Ethan stepped forward.
Rachel moved back.
He stopped.
She saw the moment register in him.
Not fear exactly.
Something worse.
He understood that she no longer assumed his hands were safe.
“I would never hurt you.”
“You already did.”
Rachel walked past him.
Thomas did not follow until she turned and said, “You too.”
They left the cathedral through a service entrance because Megan knew where it was and because Rachel could not bear to walk past the guests.
Thomas carried his bag.
Rachel carried nothing.
Megan had the bouquet for several blocks before realizing she was still holding it.
She looked down.
“What do I do with this?”
Rachel kept walking.
“I have no idea.”
At the corner, Megan handed the roses to a woman selling bottled water from a folding table outside a park.
The woman stared at them.
“Wedding go bad?”
Megan said, “You could say that.”
Rachel laughed again.
This time the laugh turned into a sob halfway through.
May you like
She covered her mouth and kept walking.
By midnight, three different videos of Thomas entering the cathedral had been posted online.
