Chapter 6 - THE BRIDAL ROOM
I should have left.
Margaret offered to drive me home.
Daniel’s aunt offered to help with my chair.
Even the photographer quietly asked whether I wanted copies of anything he had captured.
But before I could leave, Emily asked me to come into the bridal room.
At first, I refused.
Then Dad said something that changed my mind.
“Go hear her.”
“Not for her.”
“For yourself.”
So I went.
Margaret pushed open the bridal room door.
I wheeled myself inside.
Then she stepped back into the hallway.
Emily stood in front of the mirror.
Her wedding gown spread around her like spilled milk.
Our mother sat on a velvet chair.
Neither woman spoke.
I waited.
Emily finally turned.
“Are you happy now?”
I almost left.
Mom touched her arm.
“Emily.”
“No.”
She pointed at me.
“She needs to answer.”
I looked at the dress.
The makeup.
The ruined flowers.
Then at my sister.
“No.”
Emily laughed bitterly.
“Right.”
“I’m not happy.”
“Why would I be?”
“My sister hates looking at me.”
“My parents stole from me.”
“And a man who did nothing wrong just discovered the person he planned to marry lied to him for years.”
Her face tightened.
“You always make everything sound so dramatic.”
I looked down at my legs.
Under the dress, compression garments covered scar tissue that still split in winter.
“You told your fiancé I caused the fire that nearly killed me.”
“I was embarrassed.”
The words escaped her before she could stop them.
Our mother looked away.
I stared at Emily.
“Of me?”
She swallowed.
“Of the story.”
“No.”
“Say it.”
She shook her head.
“Say what you mean.”
Her eyes flashed.
“Yes.”
The answer was barely audible.
“Yes, sometimes I was embarrassed by you.”
The honesty hurt.
But strangely, it also relieved me.
For years I had sensed it.
Now I did not have to pretend.
Emily wiped under one eye.
“When people see us together, they look at you first.”
I waited.
“They notice the chair.”
“The scars.”
“Then they look at me.”
“And I know what they’re thinking.”
“What?”
“That I’m the girl you saved.”
I stared at her.
“You are.”
“I know.”
Her voice cracked.
“That’s the problem.”
She sat on the edge of a table.
“I never got to be anything else around you.”
I thought of all the school plays I attended.
Her graduation.
The apartment deposit I secretly helped her pay when she moved out after college.
The nights she called after breakups.
The birthday cakes.
The Christmas gifts.
The countless times I deliberately avoided mentioning the fire because I knew it made her uncomfortable.
“You could have been anything you wanted.”
I said.
“But you decided my existence was taking something from you.”
Emily covered her face.
Mom began crying again.
I looked at her.
“Stop.”
She blinked.
“What?”
“Please stop crying like this happened to you.”
Her mouth fell open.
I had never spoken to my mother that way.
It felt overdue.
“You stood beside Emily when she told me to move.”
“I froze.”
“You always freeze.”
The sentence landed.
Dad had frozen outside the burning house.
Mom had frozen in the church.
My entire childhood suddenly seemed full of adults waiting for someone else to do the difficult thing.
“You could have told her no.”
Mom whispered.
“I know.”
“You could have told me about the money.”
“I know.”
“You could have stopped Dad.”
“I know.”
“You could have stopped Emily from using the account to fund this wedding.”
She closed her eyes.
“I know.”
I turned back to Emily.
“Did you actually threaten Mom?”
Emily looked at her.
Then at me.
“I found a statement.”
“I asked questions.”
“That isn’t what she said.”
Emily stood.
“I told her if she didn’t help with the wedding, I might ask you why there had once been so much money in your name.”
My stomach twisted.
“That is blackmail.”
“I was angry.”
“You were twenty.”
“I was twenty, and I had just learned Mom and Dad had lied to both of us.”
“So you punished them by spending more of my money?”
Emily flinched.
“When you say it like that—”
“There is no other way to say it.”
She went silent.
I placed my hands on the wheels of my chair.
“I’m done.”
Mom stood.
“Done with what?”
“This conversation.”
“This wedding.”
“This family pretending everything terrible happened because nobody had another choice.”
I moved toward the door.
Emily called after me.
“What are you going to do?”
I looked back.
For the first time, she looked less angry than afraid.
“I don’t know yet.”
That frightened her more.
As I reached the hallway, the photographer was waiting.
He held a small wireless audio receiver.
“I think you should know something.”
I stopped.
He looked uncomfortable.
“Emily was wearing a microphone for the wedding video.”
My heart began pounding.
He swallowed.
May you like
“It was live when she spoke to you.”
And suddenly her cruel whisper was no longer something she could deny.
