Chapter 3: The Woman At The Door
She was older.
Maybe seventy.
Small and thin in a grey coat that looked like she'd been travelling in it for days.
She walked up the centre aisle like she'd been inside this church a hundred times before.
Her eyes went straight past the guests, straight past the priest, straight to the man standing at the altar.
"Daniel," she said.
Not Leo.
Daniel.
The name landed in the silence like a stone dropped into still water.
He turned to face her.
Something in his shoulders collapsed.
"Mum." His voice was barely a sound.
"You weren't supposed to be here."
"I know." She stopped at the foot of the altar steps.
She looked at me then, really looked at me, and her eyes filled immediately.
"You must be Monica."
I still had the photograph in my hands.
"Someone needs to tell me what is happening."
The woman — his mother — pressed one hand to her mouth.
Then she straightened.
She looked at her son.
"You tell her," she said.
"All of it.
Right now.
You don't get to stop halfway."
Diane had moved to stand beside me.
I could feel her hand hovering near my elbow, not quite touching.
The priest had stepped back two full paces.
A hundred and six people were not breathing.
The man I had planned to marry turned back to face me.
"My name is Daniel Marsh," he said.
"Leo was my older brother.
He was seven when we moved.
I was five."
I looked at the photograph again.
The little boy.
The gap-toothed girl.
"You were there," I said slowly.
"You were there the whole time."
"I was always there.
Leo was the one who talked to everyone.
He was the one who made friends.
I just followed him around." He stopped.
Swallowed.
"He made me promise, Monica.
The week before he got sick — he made me promise that if he couldn't come back for you, I would."
"He was seven years old."
"I know."
"You were five."
"I know."
"And you kept that promise for twenty years by pretending to be him?"
The question came out quieter than I expected.
Not a shout.
Not a sob.
Just a question sitting in the open air of a church, waiting for an answer that could not possibly be good enough.
His mother made a small sound on the step below us.
"He didn't mean for it to go this far," she said.
"When he walked into your bakery, he was going to tell you straight away.
He was going to say — I'm Daniel, Leo's brother, Leo asked me to find you.
That was all he was going to say."
"Then why didn't he?"
She looked at her son.
He looked at the floor.
"Because you said his name," Daniel said.
"The moment you saw me, before I could open my mouth, you said — Leo?
And the way you said it —" He stopped.
His jaw worked.
"I couldn't take it from you.
Not in that first second.
I told myself I'd explain the next day.
Then the next week.
Then you were in my car telling me about your mother's garden song and I was already in love with you and I didn't know how to go back."
Diane's hand found my elbow.
I looked down at the photograph.
The little boy with the serious face standing next to a gap-toothed girl who had no idea she was about to lose everyone she'd been promised.
"What was in the biscuit tin?" I said.
"Under the oak tree."
He didn't hesitate.
"A marble, a bus ticket, a drawing of a dog, and a note that said we would be best friends forever.
Leo's handwriting.
You made him write it because you said your handwriting was too messy to be official."
The marble.
The bus ticket.
The dog with three legs because you couldn't draw the fourth one.
My throat closed.
"Get out," I whispered.
His face went white.
"Monica —"
"Everyone." I raised my voice just enough.
"Please give us the room."
Nobody moved for a moment.
Then Diane squeezed my arm once, hard, and walked back down the aisle.
The priest followed.
The guests began to rise, a slow shuffle of fabric and confusion, and Daniel's mother looked at her son one last time before she turned and walked out with the rest of them.
May you like
The church doors swung shut.
And I was alone at the altar with a man whose name I did not know.
