Chapter 4

The brass deadbolt turned with a heavy, familiar click.

I pushed the front door open just enough to step into the tiled foyer.

The warmth of the house smelled of roasted garlic and the lemon polish Emmett’s mother had used on the dining table that morning.

The conversation in the living room cut off instantly.

Emmett set his beer bottle down on the brick mantel with a quiet, careful clink.

His mother, Lenore, stayed seated on the sofa, a stack of handwritten place cards resting in her lap. She took off her reading glasses, letting them hang against her knit sweater by their silver chain.

"Brenna," Emmett said, staying where he was by the fireplace. "Where have you been? My phone’s been ringing for two hours."

"Joelle is waiting in the car," I said, keeping my hand on the brass doorknob. "I came to get my gear and my grandmother’s earrings."

Lenore set the place cards on the coffee table. Her movements were smooth and practiced, the posture of a woman about to dispense advice she believed was generous.

"Brenna, dear," she said, her voice measured. "We know you're upset about the slideshow. Emmett was trying to protect a girl who has already had to share her father for five years."

She folded her hands in her lap, looking at me with steady disappointment.

"A second marriage takes patience. If you expect a man to pretend his daughter didn't have a life before you arrived, you are going to spend your whole life feeling shortchanged."

"I never asked him to pretend that, Lenore," I said. "He chose to pretend I didn't exist."

Emmett exhaled sharply, dragging a hand across his forehead.

"Brenna, please," he muttered. "Teagan is sleeping at Calla’s tonight because she thinks she ruined the weekend."

"Teagan texted me," I said. "She knows you took my photos out. And she knows why."

Emmett went quiet. His eyes flicked toward his mother, then back to the floor between us.

"Margo was having a hard time, Brenna," he said, keeping his voice low, as if reasonable volume could turn an excuse into an explanation. "She’s sitting in the church tomorrow. If she feels pushed out, she withdraws, and Teagan spends the entire reception walking on eggshells around her own mother. I was trying to give my daughter one peaceful day."

"You didn't give her a peaceful day," I said. "You just asked me to pay for it."

"Tell your mother that Teagan put me in her video," I said. "Tell her you took me out and told Teagan the file was broken."

Emmett looked at Lenore. She was watching him now, the place cards forgotten in her lap.

"We can talk about the file tomorrow," he said. "I’m not putting our whole marriage on trial in my mother’s living room."

I had come back because some part of me thought he would finally say the one thing that cost him something. He had heard exactly what I needed and asked me to wait until the guests were in their seats again.

I turned down the hallway toward the guest room.

The ivory dress hung against the dark wood of the doorframe, still sealed in the boutique’s clear plastic bag.

I had paid for that dress myself.

Three thousand four hundred dollars from my emergency savings, fitted over four separate alterations so the neckline sat just high enough to cover the faint scar on my collarbone.

The boutique’s policy was stamped in red ink on the receipt tucked into my purse: Final sale. No refunds.

No store credit.

I left the plastic unzipped.

I walked past the gown, went to the dresser, and picked up the small velvet box. My grandmother’s pearl earrings were cold against my fingers as I slipped them into my pocket.

Under the dresser sat my two black Pelican cases. Inside were the three camera bodies, four prime lenses, and the external drives that represented twelve years of building a freelance business.

I took a heavy handle in each hand and turned back to the corridor.

Emmett was standing in the hall, three feet from the bedroom door.

He didn't reach for the handles. He just looked at the cases, then up at my face.

"Brenna," he said, his voice flat with warning. "My family is already in town. If you carry those out to Joelle's car, I'm not calling everyone in the morning to explain."

"You don't have to," I said.

I walked past him.

He stayed where he was, his shoulder brushing the doorframe as he watched me carry the cases through the foyer.

Lenore stood up from the sofa as I reached the front door. "Brenna, think about what this looks like."

I didn't answer.

I pulled the door open, stepped out onto the damp brick porch, and walked down the pathway to Joelle’s idling car.

Joelle popped the trunk latch from the driver’s seat. I lifted the cases inside, one after the other, the heavy plastic settling against the carpeted floor.

I shut the trunk lid and leaned against the rear bumper under the yellow glow of the streetlamp.

The night air was cool enough to sting the back of my throat.

Inside that house, a nonrefundable dress that had cost thirty-four hundred dollars hung in a plastic bag. I had no home to go back to without asking Joelle for her daybed.

Leaving wasn't clean. It was an immediate, expensive tear through everything I had budgeted for the year.

I pulled my phone from my coat pocket and opened the messaging app for the wedding website we had set up four months ago.

The guest list was synced to sixty-two confirmed phone numbers—my relatives, his coworkers, old college friends who had booked hotel rooms across town.

I tapped the text field.

The wedding scheduled for tomorrow, Saturday, May 18th, has been canceled.

I stared at the blinking cursor for two seconds, then added two more sentences.

Emmett changed the video Teagan made for our reception to cut me out, then insisted on playing that version. Teagan did nothing wrong.

There will be no ceremony or reception tomorrow. Brenna.

My thumb missed the same letter twice. I steadied the phone against the trunk and made sure the word canceled was right.

I would have to live with every person who read it.

My finger hovered over the blue arrow.

Through the sheer curtains of the front window, I could see Emmett standing by the lamp, holding his phone in both hands, waiting to see if my headlights would back down the driveway.

I pressed send.

The delivery status flickered from gray to green.

I got into the passenger seat. Joelle waited until I pulled the seat belt across my chest, then backed away from the house.

Joelle pulled away from the curb. My phone lit again, this time with Teagan's name.

Why did you put my name in the text?

A second message arrived before I could answer.

Calla's mom just asked me what I did.