Chapter 2
Claire sat beside me on a narrow wooden bench while I enlarged the photograph.
The apartment building filled the screen. It was small, brick-faced, and stained dark beneath the windows. I didn't remember it. I didn't remember the coat I was wearing or the chipped step beneath my sneakers. I remembered only fragments from childhood: a radiator ticking at night, the taste of orange juice, a woman's hand closing around mine when traffic passed too close.
The woman in the picture had that hand.
Claire leaned closer. Her shoulder touched mine, then pulled away as if she wasn't sure I wanted contact.
“I believe it's you,” she said.
I looked at her.
She swallowed. “I mean, I believe you. I don't know what this means yet.”
That distinction mattered. I nodded.
The file was named IMG_0417. I opened the details. The scan had been added to my phone three days earlier. The location field was blank. The favorite marker was new.
Three days.
I had been in my apartment then, packing cuff links and arguing with Claire about whether the reception candles were too expensive. My phone had been on the kitchen counter most of the evening.
“Who had access?” Claire asked.
“I don't know.”
She didn't say her father. She didn't need to.
The door opened. Graham stepped inside with two church volunteers behind him. He had removed his jacket and folded it over one arm. His expression was patient now, the expression he used when settling a dispute with a caterer.
“The guests are being asked to leave,” he said. “We can contain this if we move quickly.”
Claire stood. “Contain what?”
His eyes went to my phone. “A woman making an unsupported claim during your wedding.”
“She gave him a photograph,” Claire said.
“A photograph can be manufactured.”
I opened the image again. “You said I didn't know what I was looking at.”
“I said you don't know the circumstances.”
“Then tell me.”
Graham glanced at Claire. “Not in front of him.”
A short, cold silence formed between us.
Claire's face changed first. She had spent the morning looking at me as if I were the one person in the room who could make the day safe. Now she looked at her father as if she had found a locked door in her own house.
“What do you know?” she asked.
Graham's jaw worked. “Enough to know this woman has a history of appearing when she wants something.”
“What does she want?”
He looked at me. “Access. Money. A place in your life.”
Mara had refused all three in the room behind the choir. She had given me a phone number and told me not to punish anyone before I could hear the truth.
I opened the file information again. There was a note beneath the scan, not visible in the photograph itself. I hadn't noticed it because my hands were shaking.
A short line appeared in the description field:
Ask about 14 Willow Court.
I stared at it.
Claire read over my shoulder. “Is that the building?”
“I don't know.”
Graham stepped forward. “Delete the file.”
The command was so direct that the room seemed to contract.
Claire looked at him. “Why?”
“Because you have no idea what she has put on that phone.”
I held the device against my chest. “You knew she might come.”
“I knew there was a risk.”
“A risk?”
“Evan, your wedding is already over. Don't let her take the rest of it.”
The sentence landed harder than I expected. Not because he was wrong about the wedding, but because he spoke as if it belonged to him.
I stood and put the phone in my pocket.
“I'm not deleting anything.”
Graham's face went flat. “If you walk out with this story, you may not have a family to return to.”
Claire stepped between us. Her lace skirt brushed the bench.
“Then stop asking him to choose before he knows what happened.”
Graham stared at her for several seconds. He had no answer that would keep his voice calm.
I took out the card Mara had given me. My thumb covered the number.
“I need time,” I said.
“No,” Graham replied. “You need control.”
For the first time that day, I understood that he believed those were the same thing.
Claire reached for my hand. I let her take it.
“We're going to Willow Court,” she said.
I looked at the photograph once more. The boy's crooked tooth showed through his uncertain smile. Mara's younger hand held his so tightly that their knuckles touched.
May you like
Outside, the church doors opened and closed as the last guests left.
The wedding had become a question with an address.
