“What she did was ugly,” Nora said. “The box is just proof.”
“This is your wedding. Not a courtroom.”
“She’s the one putting you on trial, Dad. Not me.”
I stood, gripping the back of a chair. “Let people think what they want, honey.”
“No. You’ve spent your whole life being both parents to six kids. You don’t need this extra weight on top of it.”
Nora opened her folder and pulled out a printed message. “She wrote to me two weeks ago.”
I took the page. Diane had told Nora I was bitter. That I’d made everything difficult for her. That I’d kept the girls close deliberately, to punish her.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I wanted to see what she was actually doing first.”
“And now?”
“Now I know.”
Marcus, Nora’s fiancé, stepped into the kitchen with seating cards in hand and froze at the sight of our faces. “Bad time?”
“My mother texted my dad,” Nora said.
He set the cards down. “She’s coming?”
“With Grant,” Nora said. “And I need the box.”
I looked at him. “Don’t get dragged into this.”
“I’m marrying into this family in three days,” he said. “I think the dragging already happened.”
Nora touched my arm. “Please, Dad. Let me handle it.”
“You don’t know what that box is going to do.”
“I know what her lie is already doing.”
I looked at my daughter and still saw the little girl on the stairs — except she wasn’t little anymore.
“What are you going to do with it?”
“Use it only if she lies.”
“Then it stays closed until then.”
I woke before sunrise on the wedding day. I was in a small back room wrestling with my tie when Marcus walked in.
“Need help?”
“I raised six girls,” I said. “You’d think I could handle a piece of fabric by now.”
He fixed the knot for me. “You handled the hard part already. Today’s about Nora. But I know what it took to get her here.”
I had to blink hard.
The door opened and Ruby walked in like she was heading into battle. “If Diane makes a scene,” she said, “I’m walking outside before I say something I can’t take back.”
Behind her, Willow appeared in a soft blue dress, twisting her bracelet nervously around her wrist. “Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“Do I have to hug her?”
The room went quiet. I put both hands on her shoulders. “No. Nobody gets a hug just because they share your blood.”
Her shoulders dropped, relieved. “Okay.”
