Chapter 3 - Daddy Leans Down
I felt his hand before I saw his face.
Dad came up fast from my left, his shoes loud on the dance floor, and his fingers closed around my shoulder. Not the way he held me when I was tired in the church parking lot or when he buckled me into the truck. This was hard, thumb pressing into the thin strap of my pink dress. It hurt and I flinched, and the ring shifted sweaty in my closed palm.
The music had stopped. Someone near the cake table whispered something I couldn't catch, and then a lot of people were whispering at once. I heard that low rolling sound adults make when they don't want you to hear the words. Out of the corner of my eye I saw phones lifted up around the tables, little black rectangles catching the chandeliers. Then one by one, a few of them lowered again when Dad turned his head.
Lauren stood about ten feet from us. She wasn't shouting now. Her mouth was shut tight and her hands were clasped in front of her white dress, right over her stomach. I remember her earrings swinging a little even though she was trying to stand very still. She looked calm, but it wasn't real calm. Her smile didn't reach up to her eyes, and her eyes kept flicking from me to Dad like she was waiting for him to do something.
"Dad," I whispered again. My throat felt full of hot air. "Please."
He leaned down. His tie swung forward and brushed my arm. I could smell his cologne and coffee. His face was close, his eyebrows pulled together the way they got when I tracked mud into his apartment.
"Lily," he said. His voice was low and stern. "What do you have in your hand?"
I didn't want to open it. If I opened it everyone would look. But his grip tightened a little, so I did. I uncurled my fingers slowly. The ring sat there in the middle of my palm, catching the warm light. It looked too big for me to be holding. A couple of the guests leaned forward to see.
"Where did you get that?" he asked.
My lips shook. I tried to think about the hallway, about bending down by the baseboard, about how cold the metal had felt when I first picked it up. But his face was so close and his hand was so heavy that the words got stuck.
"I found —" I started, and then stopped because I thought he wouldn't believe me.
Behind him Lauren made a small sound, not quite a sigh. "Daniel," she said softly, "everyone's watching."
I looked at her again. That was when I noticed it. Her shoulders were up high and her fingers were twisting the edge of her veil. She kept that tight smile on, like the pictures the photographer had made us take outside, but her jaw moved like she was holding her breath. She wanted Dad to finish it quick, before anyone asked anything else.
Dad glanced at her, then back at me. His mouth opened. I knew that look. It was the look before I got in trouble for running ahead at the grocery store, the pause where he decided how mad to sound. His fingers loosened just a fraction, then tightened again, like he couldn't decide whether to pull me closer or push me toward her to say sorry.
"Did you take this off the table?" he asked. His voice cracked a little on the last word.
I shook my head hard. My braid hit my cheek. "No. I didn't. I swear."
The whispering got louder again. A chair scraped back somewhere near the flowers. I wanted to press my face into Dad's suit jacket the way I usually did when I was scared, but his arm felt stiff and straight, holding me out where everyone could see.
He stared at my open palm for a long second. His eyes moved from the ring up to my wet face. I saw something shift in him, a little flicker, like he heard how hard I was breathing. His grip didn't let go, but it stopped squeezing.
May you like
Then from the edge of the crowd, past the tables, I heard footsteps and the soft whir of something moving. Dad heard it too. He lifted his head and looked past Lauren toward the back where the guests were parting.
His hand stayed on my shoulder, but he didn't finish what he was going to say.
