I Called Him Daddy While His Bride Told Me To Leave...

The door clicked shut and the music got muffled, like someone put a pillow over it. The little room smelled like flowers and dust. There was a couch along the wall and a mirror and a box of tissues. The lady in the white dress stood by the door with her arms crossed. She wasn't crying anymore. She was mad.

"Okay," she said. " Somebody tell me how two kids just walk into my wedding."

My daddy — I still called him that in my head even if I didn't say it out loud again — stood between us. He had his jacket open and his bow tie a little crooked. He looked at me, not at her.

"You didn't come alone," he said quiet. "Did you?"

I shook my head. My arms were getting tired but I didn't let go of her. She was warm against my cardigan and her head was tucked right under my chin. The pink blanket had slipped down a little so I pulled it back up with my teeth and then with my hand.

"We took the bus," I said.

The lady laughed, but not like anything was funny. "The bus. Great."

He held up his hand to her. "Let her talk."

I tried to remember it right. The bus had been late and the bench at the stop was hot from the sun. I kept her on my lap the whole time because the carrier thing dug into my shoulder and I was scared it would break. A man in a work shirt asked how old she was and I said almost one, and he nodded like that was a good answer. I held the transfers tight so I wouldn't lose them.

"Which bus?" my dad asked.

"The number nine," I said. "Then we got off by the gas station and walked."

I remembered the sidewalk. It was cracked and one part was pushed up by a tree. I had to walk around it because the stroller wheels — no, we didn't have a stroller. I had to step careful because I was carrying her. My arms burned. The blanket kept catching the wind. I kept tucking the corners back in so the sun wouldn't get in her eyes. People in cars drove past. Nobody stopped.

"You walked from the gas station?" he said. "That's six blocks."

I nodded. She'd started to fuss halfway there, so I'd stopped by a church parking lot under a sign and bounced her a little. I had a bottle in my backpack but it was empty by then, just a little milk stuck on the sides. I gave her my finger to suck on until she calmed down. I didn't put her down on the ground. Not once.

The lady stepped closer. "This is ridiculous. Who put you on that bus?"

I looked down at her little hand holding my cardigan. My backpack was still on one shoulder. It made my neck hurt.

"Show me," my dad said. "You had something written down, didn't you? You kept looking at it on the aisle."

My face got hot. I shifted her to one arm — I never let go, I just moved her up higher — and dug in my front pocket with my other hand.

The paper was soft now, all folded and unfolded too many times. The edges were fuzzy. I handed it to him because my hands were full.

He opened it.

It just had the name of this chapel and a time. Ten o'clock. And underneath, in smaller writing, go in if the doors are open.

The writing was slanted and the ink was a little smeared where my thumb had sweated on it.

He stared at it a long time. His mouth got thin. All the color went out of his face, like he'd seen something he knew.

"What?" the lady said. "What is it?"

He didn't answer her right away. He turned the paper over. There was nothing on the back. He looked at the front again.

"Do you know that handwriting?" she asked. Her voice got sharp. "Because I swear, if somebody set this up — if somebody sent them here on purpose to ruin this —"

"Nobody ruined anything," he said, but his voice sounded far away.

"Then who wrote it?" She pointed at the paper. "Kids don't just know to come to a wedding chapel at ten o'clock. Somebody told her. Somebody staged this."

I held the baby tighter. She made a little noise and I rocked side to side without thinking.

"I don't know who wrote it," I said fast. "It was in the mailbox. In a envelope with no stamp. I didn't — I just did what it said because —"

"Because what?" the lady said.

I didn't say because I had nowhere else to go. I didn't say because the apartment was empty and the milk was gone. I just looked at my dad.

He folded the paper very careful, like it might tear, and put it in his pants pocket. His hand stayed there a second.

"Who gave that to you?" he asked me. Low. "Think. Was it handed to you? Left for you?"

"It was just there," I said. "This morning."

He glanced at the door, then back at me. I could see him thinking hard about someone he hadn't talked to in a while. About a phone call he missed or a promise he made.