“This is your wedding. Not a courtroom.”
“She’s the one putting you on trial.”
I stood and gripped the back of a chair. “Let people think what they want, hon.”
“No, Dad. You’re exhausted from being both parents to all of us. You don’t need this extra pressure.”
“The box is just proof.”
Adele opened her folder and pulled out a printed message.
“She wrote me two weeks ago.”
I took the paper.
Maya had told Adele I was bitter. That I’d made things hard. That I’d kept the girls close because I wanted to punish her.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I wanted to know what she was doing first.”
“She wrote me two weeks ago.”
“And now?”
“Now I know.”
Jerome, Adele’s fiancé, stepped into the kitchen with seating cards in his hand and stopped when he saw our faces.
“Bad time?”
Adele looked at him. “My mother texted Dad.”
Jerome set the cards down. “She’s coming?”
“My mother texted Dad.”
“With Harry,” Adele said. “And I need the box.”
I looked at him. “Don’t get dragged into this.”
“I’m marrying into this family in three days,” he said. “I think the dragging already happened.”
Adele touched my arm. “Please, Dad. Let me handle it.”
“You don’t know what that box will do.”
“I know what her lie is already doing.”
“Please, Dad. Let me handle it.”
I looked at my daughter. I still saw the girl on the stairs, but she wasn’t little anymore.
“What are you going to do with it?”
“Use it only if she lies.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
“Then it stays closed.”
That seemed fair.
“Use it only if she lies.”
***
The box was where it had always been, behind old papers and a blanket nobody used. I pulled it down with both hands and carried it back.
“There,” I said, setting it on the table. “Fifteen years.”
***
On the wedding day, I woke before sunrise.
I was in a small room, fighting with my tie, when Jerome came in.
