Chapter 4: The Man in the Photograph
The photograph was taken outdoors, at a restaurant I recognized — Bellini's on Hargrove Street, the Italian place Rebecca said she'd never been to because she didn't like the neighborhood.
She was sitting at a corner table.
Smiling.
Leaning forward with her chin resting on her hand the way she did when she wanted someone to feel like the only person in the room.
The man across from her was not me.
I turned the photograph over.
On the back, in Carol's handwriting: *March 14th.
Eleven weeks ago.*
Eleven weeks ago I had been in Edinburgh for a conference.
Rebecca had texted me a photograph of herself watching television at home.
She'd said she was too tired to go out.
The restaurant behind her in this photograph was lit up and full.
"Who is he?" I asked.
Carol pressed her lips together.
"His name is Daniel Forsythe.
He's a property developer.
They were together for four years before she met you."
"She told me she hadn't spoken to him since before we started dating."
"I know what she told you."
I turned to Rebecca.
She didn't deny it.
She looked at the photograph in my hand and then she looked at me, and what I saw on her face was not guilt and not love and not even fear.
It was the expression of someone recalculating.
"It was lunch," she said.
"A business conversation.
He's involved in the Keller Street development and I have a client with property on that road.
It was professional."
"Eleven weeks ago you told me you were home watching television."
"I didn't want to explain a business lunch that had nothing to do with us."
"You lied."
"I simplified."
The word landed in the chapel like something dropped from a height.
Behind me, I heard someone stand up.
Then another person.
I didn't turn around to see who.
I kept my eyes on Rebecca.
"How long?" I asked.
"James, this is not the place—"
"How long have you been seeing him?"
"I am not seeing him.
It was one lunch."
"Carol." I didn't look away from Rebecca.
"How long?"
Carol was quiet for a moment.
Then: "The lunch in March wasn't the first one.
I've seen them together three times in the past year.
I don't know what happened at those meetings.
I only know they happened."
Rebecca turned on her sister with a fury that was sudden and absolute.
"You have no idea what you're talking about.
You have spent your entire life trying to pull me down because you couldn't build anything of your own, and this — this is the worst thing you have ever done to me.
In a church.
On my wedding day.
In front of everyone."
"I did it in front of everyone," Carol said quietly, "because I was afraid of what you'd do if I told him alone."
The chapel went very still.
Rebecca opened her mouth.
Closed it.
"What does that mean?" I asked.
Carol looked at me.
Her voice was steady but her hands were not.
"Six months ago, when I first found out about the school — about Hartwell — I told Rebecca I was going to tell you.
She said if I did, she would make sure I lost my job.
She knows my manager.
They went to university together." Carol paused.
"I believed her.
I'm not proud of that.
But when I saw Emily this morning, in that dress, with those flowers in her hair, I couldn't—"
She stopped.
Pressed her hand over her mouth for a moment.
"I couldn't let it happen."
Emily had turned her face into my neck.
I held her tighter.
Rebecca was watching Carol with an expression I had never seen on her before.
Not anger anymore.
Something colder.
"You'll regret this," Rebecca said.
"Maybe," Carol said.
"But not as much as I would have regretted the other thing."
I put the photograph and the documents back into the envelope.
I folded the envelope once and placed it in my jacket pocket, next to the note.
Then I turned to the priest.
He was a small man in his sixties who had married my parents thirty-four years ago and baptized Emily when she was three weeks old.
He was standing at the altar with his hands folded, watching me with an expression that asked nothing and offered everything.
"Father Michael," I said.
"I'm sorry.
We won't be needing you today."
He nodded once, slowly, like a man who had seen this before and understood it completely.
I picked Emily up properly, both arms, the way I used to carry her when she was small enough that it was easy.
"Where are we going, Daddy?" she whispered.
"Home," I said.
I walked toward the chapel doors.
Rebecca's voice followed me.
"If you leave now, James, that is the end.
Do you understand me?
That is the end of everything."
I pushed the door open with my shoulder.
Sunlight came in, wide and clean and indifferent to everything that had just happened inside.
I didn't answer her.
But as the door swung shut behind us, I heard one more thing — not Rebecca's voice this time.
A different sound entirely.
May you like
The slow, unmistakable scrape of chairs, as the guests began to stand.
Not for the bride.
