Seven
I should be walking down the aisle right about now.
I know because Matilda gave me a laminated schedule yesterday. According to that, the processional music should be playing. The guests should be standing. Three hundred heads should be swiveling toward the back of the church in coordinated anticipation.
Instead, I’m sitting on a marble bathroom floor in a satin robe with my back against the bathtub, knees pulled to my chest, staring at the eucalyptus diffuser on the counter.
It’s a very nice diffuser.
Ezra must be standing at that altar, waiting. His jaw will be clenched, doing that thing it does when he’s furious but trying to stay composed. It’s that subtle look, the one I’ve learned to read from across a room. He’ll be smiling at the guests, but the smile won’t reach his eyes. His best man will be leaning in, murmuring something low. His mother will be in the front row, stiff-spined, cursing me in her head.
I know all of this, and I still can’t get off this floor.
My legs have made a decision that my brain can’t override.
The noise outside the door stopped a while ago, but silence in my family means they’re up to something. Silence is a strategy.
The door handle wiggles.
I watch it.
It wiggles again.
Then there’s a soft, mechanical click, and the door swings open.
My father is standing in the doorway. Behind him, the suite is empty. I don’t know where everyone went, but he’s alone.
He looks at me on the floor and gives me a sad smile. It’s soft at the corners, the one that has made me feel simultaneously better and worse since I was about four years old.
“Hi there, baby.”
Something in my chest folds in half.
“How did you—"
“Picked the lock.” He leans against the frame. “Four kids, one bathroom, and your mother whenever she was having a bad day. I learned fast. Rowan once threatened to live in there. I had to talk her out of it for forty-five minutes.”
Despite everything, I feel the corner of my mouth move.
He crosses the bathroom and lowers himself to the floor beside me, exhaling when he lands, his legs stretched out in front of him, dress shirt and all.
“I asked them to give us a few minutes.” He glances sideways at me. “Your mother is in the hallway. She’s praying. Madison’s with her. Rowan is—”
“Enjoying herself?”
“Enormously,” he confirms.
I pull my knees in tighter. Outside the window, the small coastal town where we’re having the wedding is filled with people enjoying a normal Saturday, not doing anything as monumental as this.
Must be nice.
Dad doesn’t fill the silence. He never has. He’s always been the kind of man who understands that some silences need to runtheir course before they become conversations, and I’ve always loved him for it.
“You don’t have to do anything,” he says finally.
My throat tightens.
“Dad—”
