Chapter 5
The vestry door clicked shut and the sound of the organ in the chapel cut off like someone had pressed mute. It was smaller than I thought a dressing suite would be, just a low-ceilinged room with a mirrored vanity, a rack of white garment bags, and a couch where the bride's veil had been tossed. My shoes left wet prints on the rug and I could hear my sweatshirt dripping onto the stone.
My dad spread the papers from the plastic parcel across the vanity. He didn't look at the bride. His hands were shaking a little when he smoothed out the first sheet, then the second.
"These are real," he said, more to himself than to either of us. "These transfer confirmations."
The bride stood by the door with her arms crossed over her white dress. Her loose blonde strands had come undone and she kept tucking them back. She wasn't looking at the papers. She was looking at me.
"Start from the beginning," my dad said to me. His voice was low. "When did this start?"
I swallowed and my throat hurt from running and shouting. "When I was two," I said. "Nine years ago. The month they said she died."
He stared at me and I saw his jaw tighten. He picked up a thin yellowed receipt at the top of the stack. The ink was faded.
"You were two," he repeated.
I nodded. "Mom said you guys had a funeral. But she wasn't in the ground. She was in a one-bedroom over in Miller County. We moved there that week."
The bride made a sound. "This is ridiculous."
I didn't look at her. I kept talking to him because if I stopped I thought I would start crying again. "At first it was cash. In envelopes. White ones, like from a bank. Mom kept them in a shoebox under her bed. She wrote the date on every one with a black marker. I remember because she'd let me hold the envelope while she wrote."
I pulled the shoebox out of my memory the way it sat in our apartment closet. The lid was torn on one corner and she'd taped it.
"She wasn't allowed to come back here," I said. "That was the rule. She had to change her last name. She had to stay out of the county. If she did, the money kept coming so we could pay rent and buy food. She said she took it because she didn't have anything else and she had me."
My dad's fingers traced the dates on the next pages. Cash deposit slips from 2017, then printed check stubs with his and her names I recognized from the chapel program, then later Venmo printouts with little notes that just said monthly.
"Every month," I said. "Sometimes it was late but it always came. Mom kept everything. Even when they switched to Venmo she printed it out at the library and put it in the box. She said one day someone would need to see it."
The bride finally stepped forward and snapped up one of the Venmo sheets. Her nails were perfect and white.
"Do you hear yourself?" she said to him. "She extorted us. Your Olivia extorted us for years. She called me last month and said if we went through with the wedding she would send all of this to your family and to the press. She threatened us."
My dad looked up at her then. His eyes were red around the edges.
"She threatened to tell the truth?" he said.
"It's the same thing," the bride said. Her voice was sharp now, not shaky. "She wanted fifty thousand to stay quiet through today. Fifty thousand we don't have liquid right before a wedding. I told her no. That's when she sent this kid. This is a setup, don't you see it? She coached her."
I felt my face get hot. My sweatshirt was still clinging to my back and I could feel dirt drying on my cheek.
"She didn't coach me," I said. My voice was smaller than I wanted it to be. "She's in bed right now and she can barely breathe. She told me to go because she was scared you'd think she was really dead forever. She told me to bring the box so you'd believe me."
I dumped the rest of the plastic parcel onto the vanity. More folded receipts, more printed pages, all crinkled from the rain and from being held too tight. The dates ran in a line, month after month, year after year, nine years long.
My dad stared at that line. He wasn't seeing one payment anymore. He was seeing all of them.
"This wasn't one time," he said quietly. "This was every month for nine years. You told me it was a one-time payment to help her get on her feet. You told me she wanted to disappear."
The bride's mouth opened and closed. For a second her composure cracked and I saw panic underneath it.
May you like
"She did want to," she said. "She asked for it."
My dad didn't answer her. He looked at me, and then at the door that led back to the chapel where everyone was still waiting. He hadn't moved toward either of us.
