Chapter 5: The Longest Walk Back
I put Daniel's phone in my jacket pocket.
Rebecca saw me do it.
"Nathan—"
"I'm keeping this," I said.
"Don't ask me to give it back."
Her expression shifted.
The careful composure she had held through the whole morning finally showed its first crack — not in her eyes, but in her hands.
The bouquet moved.
The stems bent slightly in her grip.
"You don't understand what that looks like out of context."
"Then give me the context."
"Not here.
Not like this."
"Rebecca." I kept my voice level.
"You spent four months arranging to have my daughter admitted to a residential facility.
You researched whether you needed my signature.
You found out you didn't.
You planned to do it the night of our wedding, while I was still in the reception hall."
"I was going to tell you—"
"When?
When I got back to an empty house?
When Emily was already gone and you handed me a document that was already signed?"
She said nothing.
"Was there going to be a conversation?" I said.
"Or was the plan that by the time I found out, it would already be done?"
The crack in her composure widened.
"You don't know what it's like," she said.
"You travel four days a week.
You have a nanny raising your daughter.
You have no idea what the daily reality of that household looks like, and I was trying to build a life with you — a real life — and every plan I made, every future I tried to imagine, there was always—"
She stopped herself.
"There was always Emily," I said.
She didn't deny it.
Emily had her face pressed against my neck.
I didn't know how much she was taking in.
I hoped very little.
I suspected more than I wanted.
"I want you to hear me say this clearly," I said.
"Emily is not a problem in my life.
She is not an obstacle to my future.
She is my future.
She is the first thing and the last thing.
If that was never going to work for you, the time to say so was two years ago.
Not this morning."
"I love you," Rebecca said.
The words came out raw.
Unpolished.
More real than anything she had said in the last ten minutes.
"I genuinely love you.
I made a terrible decision and I know that.
But I love you."
"I know you do," I said.
It was the truest thing I'd said all morning too.
"But you wrote a note to my daughter telling her she was being sent away.
And you told her I agreed.
She came to me shaking, Rebecca.
She was shaking."
Rebecca's eyes filled.
The first real tears of the morning.
"I can fix this," she whispered.
"I can fix it.
Give me the chance."
I looked at her for a long moment.
The dress.
The flowers.
The chapel full of people who had driven hours to be here.
Her mother in the front pew, hands still folded, expression still careful.
"I need to take Emily outside," I said.
"I need to get her away from this room."
I turned toward the side door.
"Nathan." Rebecca's voice followed me.
"Please.
Please don't walk out of here."
I kept walking.
Daniel fell into step beside me.
He held the side door open.
The morning air came in — cool, sharp, smelling like cut grass from the cemetery next door.
I stepped through.
Behind me, I heard Rebecca say something to her mother.
I couldn't make out the words.
But I heard Constance's response clearly.
"Call Gerald," she said.
"Right now.
Call Gerald."
May you like
I didn't know who Gerald was.
By the end of the day, I would.
