Chapter 3: Wedding Morning
I was already dressed when the sun came up.
Not in the suit she had destroyed.
I had a second one — older, darker, the one I wore to my own father's funeral twenty-two years ago.
I had pressed it the night before while my wife slept.
It still fit.
I made coffee.
I sat at the kitchen table.
I waited.
Carol came downstairs at seven.
She was in her robe, her hair pinned up for the stylist coming at nine.
She stopped when she saw me sitting there in the suit.
"What are you doing?" she said.
"Having coffee," I said.
"Would you like some?"
"You're not going."
"I haven't said where I'm going."
She crossed her arms.
"Don't do this today.
Not today, of all days."
"Sabrina is my daughter," I said.
"I raised her.
I paid for the dress she's wearing, the flowers on every table, and the building she's getting married in.
I'll be there."
Carol's jaw tightened.
"Her father is walking her down the aisle.
If you show up, you'll make a scene."
"I have no intention of making a scene."
"Then stay home."
I looked at her over the rim of my cup.
"The venue manager called again this morning.
Something about the liability insurance on the property.
They needed confirmation from the trust."
She went very still.
"I confirmed it," I said.
"Took about two minutes.
Easy enough when your name is the only one on the document."
Carol walked to the counter and picked up her phone.
Her fingers moved fast.
I watched her type without looking away.
"Who are you texting?" I asked.
"Nobody."
"Is it Garrett?"
The name landed.
Her shoulders pulled back slightly — just enough.
Garrett Hale.
That was the name on the phone the night before.
I had seen the first three letters before she turned it over.
G-A-R.
It had taken me until four in the morning, cross-referencing the transfer records, to confirm what I already suspected.
Garrett Hale.
Sabrina's biological father.
The man who had walked away when Sabrina was eleven months old and a collection notice arrived before her first birthday.
"You don't know what you're talking about," Carol said.
"Seventeen transfers," I said.
"The first one was March fourteenth.
That was the same week he came to the house for dinner.
You introduced him as an old friend."
She set the phone down.
"Those transfers were household expenses."
"To an account I've never seen before.
In a name I don't recognize."
"You're being paranoid."
"The account belongs to a numbered company," I said.
"My lawyer found the registration yesterday.
The director listed is Garrett Hale."
The color left her face.
"Carol," I said, and my voice came out quieter than I expected.
"How long?"
She didn't answer.
"How long have you been planning to leave?"
She looked at the window.
Outside, a car passed slowly on the street.
A neighbor walking a dog.
An ordinary morning.
"You were never supposed to find out before today," she said finally.
"I know," I said.
"That was the plan.
Sign the mortgage papers, move the money, and by the time I understood what had happened, you'd be gone."
She turned back to me.
Something shifted in her expression — not guilt, not exactly.
Something harder.
"You can't stop the wedding," she said.
"Sabrina will never forgive you."
"I'm not stopping anything," I said.
"I'm attending my daughter's wedding.
In my suit.
In my venue."
I stood, rinsed my cup, and set it in the rack.
"Tell Garrett I said good morning," I said.
"And tell him to bring identification.
The venue staff have been asked to verify the guest list against the trust documentation before anyone enters the building."
Carol grabbed my arm.
"You wouldn't."
I looked at her hand on my sleeve.
May you like
She let go.
"I'll see you there," I said.
