Chapter 2 - What a Nine-Year-Old Carried to the Altar
I don't remember the drive. I remember gripping the wheel until my hands hurt and running one yellow light near the highway.
Larkspur Hall was fifteen minutes out, a white event barn with string lights and a gravel lot. When I pushed through the double doors at the back, the whole room turned to look at me — and then turned right back toward the front, because whatever was happening up there was bigger than me walking in.
Sophie was standing at the microphone.
My nine-year-old. In the navy dress I'd ironed the night before. Her voice was small, but it carried all the way to the back wall.
"Daddy. I have something to say."
Derek was near the altar in a grey suit, and his face had gone the color of paper. Nicole stood beside him in her wedding dress, bouquet frozen halfway to her chest, staring at my daughter like she'd never seen her before.
Sophie opened the little white purse she'd insisted on bringing. She took out a piece of paper, folded into quarters, soft at the creases like it had been handled a lot.
"I found this in Daddy's old work jacket," she said. "The one in the garage. I didn't know what it meant, so I asked Grandma Joan to read it to me."
Nobody in that room was breathing.
Renee appeared at my elbow and grabbed my arm. "It's a letter," she whispered. "Sophie found a letter. And I don't think it's from Nicole."
Derek took one step forward, both hands out, voice low and careful. "Sweetheart. Put that back in your purse. We'll talk about it after."
Sophie's chin was trembling, but she didn't lower the paper.
"It says there's a baby," she said. "A different baby. And it's not Mommy's."
Somewhere in the third row, a woman stood up.
Slowly. Like her legs had decided before the rest of her did.
I had never seen her before in my life.
Neither had anyone else in that room.
May you like
Except Derek.
One look at his face and you knew — he knew exactly who she was.
