Chapter 4: What Was Left in the Bag
Donna reached it first.
She unzipped the outer pocket slowly, like she was expecting something to fall out.
Her hand went in and came back holding a small white envelope.
No stamp.
No return address.
Just my name written across the front in handwriting I didn't recognize.
Not Patricia's handwriting.
Someone else's.
"Do you want me to open it?" Donna asked.
"No." I took it from her.
The flap wasn't sealed.
It had just been folded shut, like whoever put it there wanted to make sure I could open it easily.
Like they wanted me to read it.
Inside was a single index card.
Handwritten.
Eight lines.
I read it once.
Then I sat down.
"What does it say?" Carrie asked.
I handed it to Donna without speaking.
She read it.
Her expression shifted through three different things before settling on something I could only describe as carefully controlled fury.
"Who wrote this?" she said.
"I don't know."
"This isn't Patricia's handwriting?"
"No."
Donna read it again.
Then she turned the card over, looking for anything on the back.
There was nothing.
The card said: *He was engaged before.
Her name was Diane.
Patricia ended it.
She said Diane had problems too.
Diane believed him when he said his mother would come around.
She waited three years.
Ask Kevin about Diane before you walk down that aisle.*
Carrie had read it over Donna's shoulder.
She straightened up.
"Okay.
That could be nothing.
That could be Patricia trying one more thing through a different angle."
"It could be," I said.
"Or someone planted it in that bag before Patricia even picked it up."
"Or Patricia put it there herself and used different handwriting."
"Can she do that?"
"I don't know what she can do.
I didn't think she could spend an evening tying wine corks to my veil either."
The three of us stood in silence for a moment.
Downstairs, I could hear the faint sound of the string quartet warming up.
Guests were arriving.
The ceremony was in thirty-five minutes.
"You need to ask him," Donna said.
"I know."
"Not because you don't trust him.
Because you need to hear it from him before you walk out there."
"I know, Donna."
"Do you want me to get him?"
I looked at my reflection in the mirror.
Dress.
Veil.
Flowers on the table beside me.
Everything exactly as it was supposed to be, except for the index card in my hand and the name I'd never heard before.
Diane.
"Yes," I said.
"Get him."
Kevin came back upstairs alone.
He stepped inside and closed the door.
He looked at my face first, then at the card in my hand.
"What is that?"
I held it out.
He took it.
Read it.
His jaw tightened on the second line.
He didn't say anything for a long moment.
"Kevin."
"Yes," he said.
"There was someone before you.
Her name was Diane."
"And your mother ended it."
He looked up.
"Who told you that?"
"The card."
"The card is not wrong." He set it down on the dressing table.
"We were together for two years.
My mother decided Diane wasn't right for me.
She made that very clear, very often, until Diane couldn't take it anymore and left."
"You didn't fight for her?"
The question landed harder than I meant it to.
Kevin was quiet for a moment.
"I was twenty-six.
I thought my mother would come around.
I kept telling Diane to be patient." He stopped.
"She ran out of patience.
I don't blame her."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I was ashamed of it.
Because I watched my mother do the same thing to you and I told myself it was different this time.
That I was different." He looked at me directly.
"I should have told you.
That was wrong."
The string quartet downstairs shifted into something slower.
"Who put that card in the bag?" I asked.
"I don't know."
"Could it have been Diane?"
Kevin's expression changed.
Something moved across his face that I couldn't quite name.
"I haven't spoken to Diane in four years," he said carefully.
"That's not what I asked."
He picked the card up again and looked at it for a long moment.
"I don't know," he said again.
But this time it sounded different.
This time it sounded like he had a suspicion he wasn't ready to say out loud.
Downstairs, the music stopped.
Then started again, louder.
A signal from the coordinator.
May you like
Fifteen minutes.
"What do you want to do?" Kevin asked.
