Chapter 6
—
Our wedding took place on a Thursday afternoon at the county courthouse.
Edith wore a pale green dress she had sewn herself. My best friend, Naomi, brought a bouquet of white daisies tied with blue thread.
My parents did not come.
At 1:42 p.m., while I stood outside the courtroom waiting for our names to be called, my phone buzzed.
It was a message from my mother.
You still have time to stop this. Walk away before he destroys everything we built for you.
I read it twice.
Then I turned off my phone.
Miles was waiting at the end of the short aisle in a dark suit borrowed from his cousin. His hands shook when he took mine.
The ceremony lasted twelve minutes.
When the clerk pronounced us married, Edith cried so loudly that even the judge smiled.
Outside, Naomi threw dried flower petals over our heads. A stranger passing the courthouse congratulated us. Miles kissed me beneath a cloudy sky.
There was no ballroom.
No champagne tower.
No string quartet.
I had never felt richer.
We ate dinner at the diner where Miles had taken me after our senior prom because neither of us could afford the restaurant our classmates had chosen.
The same red booths lined the walls.
The same neon clock hummed above the counter.
Miles ordered a cheeseburger. I ordered pancakes because I had been too nervous to eat all day.
Then the waitress brought chocolate pie and pushed a candle into the whipped cream.
“You two look happy,” she said.
“We are,” I told her.
For a few minutes, Miles laughed with me.
Then his smile faded.
He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and took out the brass key.
That was when he told me my parents had never hated him because he was poor.
“They hated me because of this.”
I stared at the key.
“You said you were still waiting for the records.”
“They arrived yesterday.”
“And you opened the locker?”
“This morning.”
My heart began beating harder.
“Before the wedding?”
“I almost didn’t.”
He reached beneath the table and lifted a narrow metal case onto the seat beside him.
“I told myself we should have one day untouched by this. But then your mother texted me.”
“My mother?”
He unlocked his phone and showed me the message.
Leave my daughter alone. Whatever you found belongs in the past. Name a price and disappear.
I read it three times.
“When did she send this?”
“Two hours before the ceremony.”
“She knew.”
“Yes.”
“What was in the locker?”
Miles placed the metal case on the table.
The lid opened with a soft click.
Inside were photographs, bank records, several cassette tapes, a small ledger, and an envelope with my father’s name written across the front.
I picked up the first photograph.
Three young men stood outside an unfinished warehouse.
One was Miles’s father, Arthur.
The second was Bennett’s father, Silas.
The third was my father.
All three were smiling.
Behind them hung a sign:
VALE, CARTER & HALE DEVELOPMENT.
I looked at Miles.
“My father told me he started the company alone.”
“He didn’t.”
Miles pulled out a faded partnership agreement.
“Your father, Bennett’s father, and mine started it together. Dad handled the construction work. Silas brought in investors. Warren managed the accounts.”
I scanned the page.
Each man owned one-third.
“What happened?”
“According to my mother, Dad died believing the company had failed. She was told there were debts and nothing left.”
“That’s what happened, isn’t it?”
Miles slowly shook his head.
He opened the ledger.
“The company didn’t fail. A month before my father died, he discovered Warren and Silas had been moving money into a second business under different names. He began copying records.”
My hands went cold.
“He confronted them?”
“We think so. The cassette tapes include a meeting between the three of them.”
“Have you listened?”
“Only to one.”
“What did they say?”
Miles’s eyes filled with a sadness that frightened me more than anger would have.
“Your father told mine to sign away his share. Dad refused.”
I looked back at the photograph.
Arthur Carter had Miles’s eyes.
“What happened after he died?”
“Warren and Silas filed a document saying Dad had sold them his interest six months earlier.”
“Did he?”
“The signature was forged.”
The diner seemed to tilt.
“No.”
“The original agreement, the ledger, and several letters from Dad’s attorney were all in the locker. He must have hidden them when he realized the accounts were being altered.”
I searched Miles’s face.
“Why would my parents hate you? You were a child.”
“Because my mother kept asking questions. Because Dad’s attorney told them he had left copies somewhere. And because I started dating their daughter.”
A terrible memory returned.
My father telling me that the Carter family always asked eventually.
My mother dropping her spoon when I mentioned Arthur.
Bennett warning me that our fathers had their reasons.
“They thought your family would use me to get close to them.”
“At first, probably.”
“And later?”
Miles removed the envelope bearing my father’s name.
The paper had never been opened.
“This was written three days before my father died.”
May you like
He handed it to me.
Inside was a single page.
