Chapter 4
The vestry door was thicker than the chapel doors and when it shut the organ cut off completely. I could hear the rain on the stained glass now and my own breathing and the water dripping off my sweatshirt onto the stone. My right hand had gone numb around the plastic.
He didn't look at the bride first. He looked at me.
"Can you show me?" he said. His voice was lower than it had been at the altar. He kept his hands at his sides like he was afraid I'd flinch if he reached out. "Lucy. Can I see what's in there?"
I nodded but I didn't move right away. My fingers were cold and the plastic had stuck to my palm. I had wrapped it three times that morning on our kitchen counter while Mom watched from the couch and told me to fold the corners tight so the rain wouldn't get in. The tape I'd used was already peeling from the wet.
The bride made a small sound. "This is ridiculous," she said. She was standing by the mirror with her arms crossed over her white dress, trying to look bored, but her shoulders were up near her ears. "Whatever she's got in there, it's not what you think."
He didn't answer her. He waited.
I knelt down because the table in the middle of the room was too high and my hands were shaking. The stone was cold through my jeans. I set the parcel down and started picking at the tape with my thumbnail. The plastic crinkled loud in the quiet room. I had to peel it layer by layer. Underneath was a folded manila envelope, soft at the edges from where Mom had held it so many times. It was still dry.
I unfolded it carefully and slid the papers out. There were maybe ten sheets, thin copies of checks and printed bank transfers, stapled in the corner where Mom had put them in order. The top one was a copy of a check. I knew that one by heart.
He crouched down next to me. Close enough that I could smell his cologne and see the rain spots on his tuxedo jacket. I pushed the papers toward him a little. He picked up the top sheet with both hands.
It was dated March 14, six years ago. Pay to the order of Olivia Hart. Five thousand dollars. Memo line blank. And at the bottom, her signature. Her name in that loopy cursive she'd practiced for her wedding invitations, the same one on our mailbox.
His thumb hovered over the signature and then pressed down like he wanted to feel if it was real.
"That's your account?" I said. I hadn't meant to speak. My voice came out hoarse.
He didn't look up. He flipped to the next page. Another transfer, same amount, same name, different date. Then another. They were all spaced out, every two months at first, then every month. Regular. I watched his eyes move down the dates.
The bride stepped closer. She leaned over his shoulder and her white skirt brushed my knee.
"Okay, yes," she said quickly. Too quickly. "I helped her. Is that what this is? I gave her money because she asked for it. She said she needed to start over somewhere else. She said it was better for everyone if she disappeared. It was charity, not—"
"It doesn't say charity," I said. I pointed to the third page without touching it. "Look at the notes Mom wrote."
In the margin next to each transfer Mom had written the date she got the money and what she spent it on in her small, neat handwriting. Groceries. Rent - March. Lucy's shoes. Doctor. She'd kept track of everything like she was afraid someone would say she wasted it.
He stared at that handwriting longer than the signatures.
"This is your handwriting," he said to the bride, but he was still looking at the papers. He turned the top check over. On the back there was a stamp from the bank and her initials where she'd signed it. "This is your account from before we... this is the condo account."
The bride's face tightened. The soft, practiced smile she wore for guests was gone.
"I told you, I was trying to protect you," she said. Her voice went thin. "She came to me after Lucy was born. She said she didn't want to be a mother. She wanted money to leave. I thought I was doing the right thing for you. For us. What was I supposed to do, let her show up at our wedding with a baby?"
I looked up at her then. My hair was still dripping onto the papers and I pushed it back with my wet sleeve.
"She never said that," I said. "She never didn't want me."
He flinched at the words. He set the papers down on the stone floor very carefully, like they might tear, and his hands stayed flat on either side of them. I could see his breathing had gotten faster.
"Olivia didn't die in a car accident," he said. It wasn't a question. He said it quietly, to the floor, to the papers, to himself. "They told me there was a car accident. Nine years ago. They told me they never found..."
His voice stopped. He didn't finish. He looked at me and for a second I saw that he finally believed I was who I said I was. Not a story. Not a mistake.
May you like
The bride laughed, a short, sharp sound. "So what, you trust a stack of photocopies from a kid who ran in off the street?"
He didn't look at her this time either. He kept his eyes on me and on the envelope that was still open on the floor between us, with more papers still folded inside that I hadn't shown yet.
