Chapter 8: The Thing About the Wedding That Nobody Fixed
We stayed one night.
Andrew slept in the guest room that still had my old track ribbons on the wall.
I lay beside him and stared at the ceiling and thought about a man named Raymond Aldiss who had d*ed in Texas eleven years ago thinking about a daughter he had never met.
I thought about the letter from Hargrove and Sills that my mother had received and never shown me.
I thought about the gender reveal on the beach.
The blue smoke.
The custom shirts.
My father's words — this is family history — while I was moving money I didn't know was already mine into an account I didn't know was already full.
I thought about the chapel.
The empty seats.
Andrew's mother placing her pearls around my neck.
In the morning, my father made coffee.
He set a mug in front of me without being asked, the way he had done every morning of my childhood.
He sat down across from me.
We were alone in the kitchen.
"I owe you more than an apology," he said.
"Yes," I said.
"You do."
He wrapped both hands around his own mug.
"I don't know how to give you more than that right now.
I'm not sure I have the words."
"Then don't use words yet." I looked at him.
"Just start the payments.
Keep your word.
Give me time."
He nodded.
His eyes were red at the edges.
"The wedding," he said.
"Lena.
I need to say something about the wedding."
"Dad—"
"I should have gotten in the car." His voice broke on the last word.
Just once.
He pulled it back the same way I had pulled mine back the day before.
"I don't care what Caleb said about Madison.
I don't care about the contractions or the group chat or any of it.
I should have gotten in the car and driven two hours and stood in that chapel and watched you walk down that aisle." He set the mug down.
"I didn't.
And there is no version of any explanation that makes that right."
I looked at my father.
At the red edges of his eyes.
At his hands around the mug.
"No," I said.
"There isn't."
He nodded.
"But I'm still here," I said.
"Drinking your coffee."
He looked up.
"That's not forgiveness," I said.
"Not yet.
But it's something."
He nodded again.
He didn't try to make it into more than it was.
Andrew came in from the hallway, car keys in hand.
He read the room in one glance and went quietly to pour himself a coffee and stand at the counter without interrupting.
We left after breakfast.
My mother hugged me at the door — a long, careful hug, the kind that asked a question it wasn't sure would be answered.
I let it last.
I didn't pull away first.
Caleb was not there.
He had left early.
He sent a text while we were on the highway.
Caleb: First payment transfers Friday.
I meant what I said about wanting to know if there's still a family here.
I know I don't get to decide that.
I read it once.
Set my phone in the cupholder.
Andrew glanced over.
"Okay?"
"I found out I had a biological father who thought about me his whole life and d*ed before I could know him," I said.
"I found out my parents spent money that was his last message to me.
I found out my brother used my wedding day as leverage." I watched the highway.
"And somehow I'm okay.
Which is a strange thing to be."
"You're not okay," Andrew said.
"You're just not broken."
I looked at him.
"There's a difference," he said.
I turned back to the window.
The Texas landscape opened wide on both sides — flat and dry and going on forever in every direction.
"Andrew."
"Yeah."
"Thank you for standing in the doorway."
He was quiet for a moment.
May you like
"Always," he said.
We drove the rest of the way home with the windows down and the radio low, and somewhere around the state line I reached over and put my hand on his arm, and he didn't say anything, and neither did I, and that was enough.
