Chapter 7
The vestry door clicked shut and the chapel organ cut off mid-note. It wasn't quiet in there, it was too quiet, like the stone walls were holding their breath.
The bride's private dressing suite was small and too warm. A rack with her white coat hung against the dark wood, and a mirror with bulbs around it reflected the three of us in a way that made the room look crowded. My sweatshirt was still dripping onto the rug. I could see the dark spot spreading under my sneakers. The plastic parcel was still in my right hand and my fingers had gone numb from holding it.
My dad - the groom - stood by the window with his bow tie undone, hanging loose against his white shirt. He hadn't looked at her since she'd said Olivia died nine damn years ago. He looked at me instead, and then at the parcel, and then away again.
"What did they tell you?" I asked him. My voice was raw from shouting in the aisle. "Nine years ago. What did they actually tell you?"
He rubbed his hand over his mouth. His stubble made a sound.
"There was an accident," he said after a second. "Out of state. Olivia was visiting her sister near Knoxville. They said it was a car accident on the highway. Rain."
The bride made a small noise. She was by the vanity, her veil already off, her hair still up but coming loose at the sides.
"Don't do this right now," she said. Her voice was low, controlled. "We have a chapel full of people."
He didn't answer her. He kept talking to me.
"They said the car went off the road. They said... they couldn't recover -" He stopped. He swallowed. "Her sister called me. She said there was no body to view. That it was closed casket because of the damage. I wasn't invited to a funeral. She said Olivia wanted cremation, that it was already done."
I stared at him. The rain was still hitting the little stained-glass window high on the wall.
"And you believed that?" I said.
He looked down at his hands. They were shaking a little.
"I was twenty-four," he said. "I didn't know what to question."
"You didn't go to Knoxville," I said. It wasn't a question. Mom had told me this part. "You didn't ask for a police report. You didn't call the hospital."
The bride stepped forward. "He was grieving. We all were. You don't interrogate a grieving -"
"Did you sign something?" I cut her off. I looked back at him. "Mom said there were papers. That someone brought you papers to sign."
His face changed. That was the first time he really flinched.
His eyes went to the bride and then quickly back to me, like he didn't want me to see.
"After," he said quietly. "A few weeks later. Lindsay said there was life insurance. That Olivia had a small policy and that signing would release it to cover... to cover debts. She said she would handle it for me because I couldn't handle anything. I signed where she told me."
Lindsay. That was her name. The bride. I'd only known her as her until then.
"You signed that Mom was dead," I said. My throat hurt. "Without seeing anything."
He didn't deny it.
"I wanted it to be simple," he said. His voice was barely above a whisper. The vestry was so small I could hear him breathing. "If she was gone, it was terrible, but it was final. If she had left... if she had just left us... I didn't know how to live with that. It was easier to believe she was dead than to think she chose to disappear and didn't want me to find her."
The bride's hands were tight on the back of a chair. Her knuckles were white against her manicure.
"You are rewriting this," she said to him. Her calm was cracking. "You begged me to help you with that paperwork. You said you couldn't look at it."
"I didn't look," he said, and for the first time he looked directly at her. "That's the point, Lindsay. I didn't look at anything you put in front of me for months. I should have."
I held the parcel out a little. The plastic crinkled.
"Mom didn't leave because she wanted to," I said to him. "She left because Lindsay paid her to. Five hundred dollars at first, then every month. She said if Mom came back, she'd lose me. Mom kept every single one."
He stared at the parcel like it might burn him.
"Where is she?" he asked me. His voice broke on the last word.
I hesitated. Mom had made me memorize it. Mercy Hospice, room 214, County Road 9, outside Hendersonville. Say it only to him.
"She's at Mercy Hospice," I said. "Twenty minutes from here. She's dying tonight. The nurse said maybe hours."
He closed his eyes. I saw his shoulders rise and fall once, hard.
"I need to see her," he said. He wasn't asking permission from the bride. He was telling me. "Before -" He couldn't finish. He looked at the parcel again. "Will you take me? Will you show me those records on the way?"
The bride laughed, a short, sharp sound.
"You are not leaving your own wedding to chase a ghost because an eleven-year-old walked in soaking wet," she said. Her composure was gone now. "This is manipulation. Those papers are fake."
I didn't look at her. I looked at my dad.
"If she's really dying," I said, "you don't have time to wait and decide later."
May you like
He nodded, once, and reached for his jacket where it hung over the chair. He didn't put it on. He just held it bunched in his hand.
"I'm going," he said. "You can tell them whatever you want, Lindsay. But I'm going tonight. Right now. With Lucy."
