Chapter 3
I went straight to the photograph table and lifted Daniel’s family portrait out of the place we had set for my father.
His picture lay facedown behind the tablecloth. I picked it up and rubbed a thumb across the glass. Someone had left a smear on his face.
Marilyn came up beside me with her dog under one arm.
“I moved it,” she said. “People were asking why there was a photograph of a dead man beside the wedding cake.”
“My father chose this house for the wedding.”
“And you’ve thanked him. But guests came to celebrate, Claire. I thought a family photograph would make the table feel warmer.”
I put my father’s picture back where it had been. He was smiling on the terrace, one hand resting on the railing he had built. I set Daniel’s family portrait with the other wedding photographs at the far end of the table.
Marilyn caught my wrist before I could step away.
“First the dog, then my room, now this. Are you going to correct everything I touch tonight?”
I pulled my hand free. “Leave his photograph here.”
Ryan came over carrying a drink. He looked at the two frames, then at the guests beginning to turn toward us.
“It’s a wedding,” he said. “People don’t want to feel like they walked into a memorial.”
A woman at the next table lowered her glass. Behind Ryan, my father’s friend Helen rose halfway out of her chair.
“We’re having this wedding in the house he left me,” I said. “His photograph can stay beside the cake.”
Ryan opened his mouth, but Daniel reached us first.
“Enough,” he told his brother.
Ryan took a step back. Daniel looked at the smear on the glass and took a napkin from the table. He wiped it clean, then straightened the frame so it faced the room.
“I should have checked with you before anything was moved,” he said to me.
Marilyn shifted the dog in her arms. “I was trying to help.”
“I know, Mom. Leave this one.”
He kept his hand beside my father’s picture until Marilyn walked away. Helen sat down again. I watched Daniel set the napkin aside, still waiting for him to tell me I had embarrassed his mother.
Instead, he said, “I’m going to thank your dad in my toast. I want everyone here to know why this place matters.”
“You promised the speeches wouldn’t be about your family taking over the house.”
“They won’t be.” He glanced toward the microphone at the head table. “Listen to what I say.”
I wanted to believe him. He had stopped Ryan, put the photograph back, and said my father’s name without making me ask twice. I left the frame where it was and went to find my seat.
A truck backed along the side drive outside the glass doors.
I stopped. Ryan was crossing the terrace toward it with two men I didn’t recognize. He pointed them toward my father’s chair, the one he had made for the room overlooking the lake.
I headed for the doors.
Behind me, a microphone crackled. Daniel had reached the head table.
“Claire,” he said, and the guests turned toward me.
I kept walking. One of the men lifted the chair, and Ryan waved him toward the truck.