Part 7
Cassandra glanced down at herself, apparently surprised to find the gown still there.
Evelyn stepped forward. “Come with me.”
Cassandra did not move.
“I need to change.”
“Yes.”
“My clothes are in the bridal room.”
“I’ll get them.”
Lydia said, “You cannot walk out through the guests.”
“They’re leaving through the west entrance,” Mara said. “The bridal suite connects to the office corridor.”
Cassandra looked once more at Elias.
“Will you call me?”
He did not answer immediately.
“I don’t know,” he said.
She nodded.
Evelyn put an arm around her daughter, careful of the gown. They walked toward the side door. Lydia followed, then stopped and faced Elias.
“You could have prevented this,” she said.
“So could you.”
Her eyes flickered.
It was small, but Elias saw it.
Mara saw it too.
Lydia recovered quickly. “I had no reason to suspect she would react this way.”
“That isn’t what I meant,” Elias said.
Lydia left without answering.
The door shut.
Mara stood beside the workbench, tablet against her hip.
“You saw that,” Elias said.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“I do not know yet.”
“Mara.”
“She reacted to the word prevent, not to the accusation itself.”
“You think she knew something.”
“I think Ms. Crane knows many things incompletely and represents them as complete.”
“That’s not new.”
“No.”
Mara picked up the sealed envelope containing the ring.
Elias looked at it.
“Put it in the vault,” he said.
“Personal or corporate?”
“Personal.”
She made a note.
“Your board chair has called twice,” she said.
“He knows?”
“Daniel informed him that the ceremony was canceled because the hangar is a corporate facility and the event disruption affects operations.”
Elias checked his watch again.
“Tell him I’ll call tonight.”
“He will come here.”
“Tell him not to.”
“He is already on the way.”
Elias sighed.
Mara looked toward the aircraft. “Do you want me to ask Daniel to finish the repair?”
“No.”
“You are no longer flying today.”
“I know.”
“You have grease on formal event flooring, two hundred guests leaving angry, three reporters outside the perimeter, a board chair driving here, and a former bride whose aunt may have information we do not. This is usually the point at which delegation becomes a virtue.”
“The seal still needs pressure testing.”
Mara watched him for a moment.
“You are avoiding the office.”
“Yes.”
“Good. I wanted to confirm we both understood.”
She set the ring envelope inside her case and left.
Elias remained alone beside the aircraft.
The partition at the end of the hangar had been pulled partly open. Through the gap, he could see rows of empty chairs and scattered programs. A champagne glass stood beneath one seat. White rose petals had fallen along the aisle, some crushed where guests had stepped on them.
He walked toward the first row.
His mother’s chair held a framed photograph of her laughing beside the same aircraft before restoration began. She wore coveralls and had her hair tied back with a red scarf. His father stood behind her, one arm around her waist, looking at her instead of the camera.
Elias sat in the chair beside the photograph.
For several minutes, he did nothing.
A maintenance fan switched off automatically. The sudden quiet made the hangar feel abandoned.
He looked at the photograph.
His mother had distrusted Cassandra from the beginning, though she had tried to hide it. Not because of money. Because Cassandra filled silences quickly. She answered questions before she had finished hearing them. She checked Lydia’s face when deciding whether something was funny.
“She borrows her certainty,” his mother had said after meeting her.
Elias had dismissed it as illness making her harsh.
Six weeks later, his mother was dead.
He had not told Cassandra about the comment. At the time, withholding it felt protective. Sitting beside the empty aisle, he wondered how many silences he had renamed kindness.
Daniel appeared near the partition carrying two paper cups.
“I brought coffee,” he said.
Elias accepted one.
It was terrible coffee, burned and watery, exactly the way the hangar machine had produced it for twelve years.
Daniel sat two chairs away, leaving the seat between them empty.
They drank without speaking.
Finally Daniel said, “My wife once threw a toaster at me.”
Elias looked at him.
“It was unplugged.”
“That helps.”
“It did at the time.”
“Why?”
“I bought her a toaster for our anniversary.”
Elias stared.
“She had been talking about how the old one burned one side. I thought I was listening.”
“That was your gift?”
“There were also flowers.”
“Good.”
“They were from the grocery store.”
Elias took another drink of coffee.
Daniel scratched his jaw. “Point is, we were twenty-six and stupid. She did not marry me for money because we had none. She also did not respect me much that year.”
“What happened?”
“We canceled dinner. I slept at my brother’s place. She went to therapy. I learned that household appliances are not romantic.”
“Still married?”
“Twenty-eight years.”
Elias looked at him.
Daniel shrugged. “I am not saying marry her.”
“I know.”
“I’m saying the worst thing someone does can be the truest thing about them in that moment without being the only true thing about them forever.”
Elias studied the coffee cup.
“What did the technicians say?” he asked.
Daniel’s expression shifted.
“Some are angry.”
“At her?”
“At you.”
Elias looked up.
“You knew the system had a pressure problem and went under the aircraft in wedding clothes. That violated two safety procedures.”
“I changed shirts.”
“You were wearing formal trousers when you started.”
“I put coveralls over them.”
“That is not the point.”
“What else?”
Daniel rubbed the edge of his cup with his thumb. “People are angry she called you a mechanic like it was an insult. People are also angry that you stood there while she thought you were one of them and apparently expected her reaction to tell you something.”
“I didn’t expect that reaction.”
“You expected a reaction.”
May you like
Elias said nothing.
Daniel looked toward the photograph of Elias’s parents.
