Chapter 7: His Own Name
He heard my footsteps on the gravel and went very still.
I stopped in front of him.
He looked up.
"I read the letter," I said.
"I know." He'd been crying.
He wasn't trying to hide it.
"I'm sorry.
I know that doesn't —"
"Stop apologising for a moment."
He stopped.
I sat down on the wall beside him.
Not close.
But beside him.
"Tell me something that has nothing to do with Leo," I said.
"Something about you.
Daniel.
Something I don't know."
He looked at me carefully, like he was checking whether it was a trap.
"I'm afraid of escalators," he said.
"Escalators."
"I know."
"You've ridden the underground with me fourteen times."
"I counted the steps and held the rail and didn't look down." He paused.
"It was fine."
Something loosened in my chest.
Just slightly.
"What else?" I said.
"I can't cook anything except one specific pasta dish and I've been making it for you once a week for eight months and pretending I have a wider range."
"I knew that."
"You knew?"
"The herbs were always in the same order.
You're not as subtle as you think."
He almost smiled.
Then didn't.
"I wanted to tell you," he said.
"Every day for two years I woke up and thought — today.
Today I'll tell her.
And then I'd see you and I'd think — not yet.
One more day of this.
One more day of being the person you thought I was." He looked at his hands.
"That's the most selfish thing I've ever done.
I know that."
"It is."
"I'm not asking you to forgive it."
"Good.
Because I don't know yet if I can."
He nodded.
He didn't push.
"What was your life like?" I said.
"Before the bakery.
Before you found me."
He was quiet for a moment.
"Quiet.
I worked in a records office — archival work, old documents, things that needed to be preserved.
I was good at it." A pause.
"I moved around a lot.
Never stayed anywhere long.
I told myself it was the job but it wasn't the job."
"You were looking for me."
"I was working up to looking for you.
There's a difference." He glanced sideways.
"It took me until I was twenty-five to actually start.
And then three months to find you.
And then I stood outside the bakery for forty minutes before I went in."
"Forty minutes."
"I almost left twice."
I looked at the church behind us.
The flowers on the door.
The ribbon on the gate.
"Leo's note said you were annoying," I said.
"I was five.
I was very annoying."
"He also said you were the best brother."
Daniel said nothing for a moment.
His jaw moved.
"He was wrong about the annoying part too," he said quietly.
"I wasn't annoying.
I was just trying to keep up with him."
I looked at the letter in my hand.
Then at the man beside me.
"I need time," I said.
"I can't stand here in my wedding dress and tell you what I think about all of this.
I need to go home and take this dress off and sit with my mother and read this letter again and be very angry for a while."
"That's fair."
"And then I need to decide whether what I feel is for a person or for a name."
He looked at me then.
Really looked.
"And if it's for a person?" he said.
"Then we start over.
Properly.
With your actual name."
He was very still.
"And if it's for a name?"
I stood up.
I smoothed the dress one more time.
"Then you'll have kept your brother's promise," I said.
"And that'll have to be enough."
I walked back toward the church.
At the door, Diane was already on her feet.
I didn't look back.
But I heard him say it — quietly, to no one, or maybe to Leo, or maybe just to the afternoon air.
May you like
"It won't be enough," he said.
"But I'll understand."
