Chapter 8
The vestry door didn't latch right. It kept breathing open an inch every time someone moved past it in the chapel, then sighing shut again. I could hear the organist still playing something soft out there, like nobody knew what to do with their hands.
He knelt down so we were eye level. My dad. The tuxedo jacket pulled tight across his shoulders and I could smell the rain still on me, and the wet wool of his pants where my sweatshirt had brushed him. He didn't touch the plastic parcel. He waited.
"Lucy," he said. His voice was lower now. "Where is she?"
I had rehearsed this on the bus. Two buses, actually. I'd said it out loud to the window and the rain. Now my throat stuck anyway.
"County hospice," I said. "St. Clare's. Room twelve."
The bride made a small sound behind us. She was by the dressing suite mirror, her white dress taking up too much of the small room. She'd taken her veil off and held it bunched in one hand like she didn't know where to put it.
"She asked me to come today," I said. I was looking at him, not her. "She said before you married her it would be a lie forever. She said if I didn't bring the records before the vows, you'd never believe me after."
He stared. His stubble was darker up close. His eyes moved fast over my face, then down to my hand. The parcel had started to fog inside from the heat of my palm.
"The doctors said hours," I said. "Not days. Tonight."
"Lucy, honey, that's a lot to put on you," she cut in. Her voice had gone smooth, careful. Like she was talking to someone else's kid at a dinner party. "If your mom is that sick, the nurses will keep her comfortable. This is not the moment. We have a hundred and twenty people out there and Reverend Thomas waiting. After the ceremony we can all go together, properly."
I shook my head. Water dripped from my hair onto the stone floor. I could see my socks were still soaking through my sneakers.
"She won't be there after," I said.
He flinched. I dug with my left hand into the front pocket of my jeans where I'd folded the other papers so they wouldn't stick together. The copy was damp at the corner but the ink was clear. I held it out.
It was a photocopy of her wristband. OLIVIA REYES DOB 08/14/1991. And under it, admission 06/12. And a nurse's note on St. Clare's letterhead, the time stamped right.
He took it with both hands. His fingers left marks on the damp paper. He read it twice. I watched his mouth move without sound.
6/13 - 10:15 AM. Patient Olivia Reyes - comfort care. Family counseled prognosis hours to <24 hours. Daughter Lucy present. Patient requested daughter deliver personal documents today. - M. Chen RN.
Today. Ten fifteen this morning. While they'd been lining white roses on the pews, Mom had been asking for extra morphine and telling me to zip my sweatshirt so I wouldn't get cold.
"Ten fifteen," he whispered. He looked up at me. "You were there this morning?"
I nodded. "She made me promise. She said you'd think she was already gone. She said the payments were the only proof she'd stayed away because you let her."
The bride stepped forward. She tried to put her hand on his shoulder and he shifted, just enough that she didn't.
"Michael, listen to me," she said. She wasn't smooth anymore. "We wait an hour. We do the vows, we thank everyone, and then we drive to the hospice together. If you walk out now in your tuxedo with a child no one knows, in the middle of your wedding, you turn a private medical situation into a public circus. The photos, the family —"
"She's dying tonight," I said. It came out louder than I meant. My voice cracked. "You paid her to leave and she did. She kept the little room above the diner and she cleaned the motel and she didn't tell me you were my dad until last month when she couldn't get up the stairs. Now you want her to wait an hour so your pictures look nice?"
The vestry went quiet except for the rain against the high window.
He folded the wristband copy carefully, carefully, and slid it inside his inside pocket. Then he looked at the door that wouldn't latch, and at me, and at the parcel still clutched in my right hand.
"Can you get to St. Clare's from here without the highway?" he asked me. "Is there a back road if traffic is bad?"
I breathed. "County Road F. Past the gas station. It's twenty minutes."
He stood up. He didn't look at her when he spoke.
"I'm going now," he said. "With Lucy. With the records. If she's there, I'm going to be there."
"Michael." The bride's voice sharpened. "You cannot leave me at the altar for a story. Give me the envelope and we will sort it after."
I tightened my hand on the plastic. He put his hand lightly on my shoulder. It was the first time he'd touched me.
May you like
"No," he said to her. Not loud. Final. "We're not waiting."
He pushed the vestry door open with his other hand. The organ music wavered out in the chapel. He didn't take the parcel from me. He let me keep holding it, and he waited for me to walk first.
