“I’m not.”
“You were the one concerned about appearances.”
“And you told them—”
“Enough,” Caroline said.
She wasn’t loud. They stopped anyway.
She looked at Bryce for several seconds.
“So you lied about your mother to make your family look better?”
He opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
Whitney stared at the photograph between us. Victor sat with both hands flat on his knees.
Caroline stood.
“I need to go outside.”
Judith followed her. Henry waited long enough to ask whether she wanted him, too. She nodded.
The door closed behind them.
Bryce turned to me.
“Are you happy?”
“No.”
“You got exactly what you wanted.”
“I wanted to be invited to dinner.”
He looked down.
For a moment, I thought we might finally speak to each other.
Then he said, “You could still fix this.”
“How?”
“Tell her it wasn’t that serious. Tell her we’ve had problems.”
“We have. We’re sitting in one.”
Victor got to his feet.
“We’re not accomplishing anything.”
I slid the photograph back into the folder.
Bryce stood, too.
He left without taking the coffee Henry had brought him.
I stayed until Judith returned.
She apologized for how the meeting had ended.
“You don’t owe me an apology,” I told her.
“Neither did you owe us this explanation.”
I carried my folder out to the truck.
Before starting it, I called Roxy.
“How was it?” she asked.
I watched a little girl in a puffy coat skip across the parking lot beside her father.
“They know.”
Roxy waited.
“He still thinks I should fix it.”
“Oh, Jo.”
“I’m coming over.”
“I’ll put the kettle on.”
The wedding was postponed before Christmas.
Caroline told me herself in a short message. She thanked me for coming and said she needed time.
I answered that I understood.
Victor left several voicemails over the next week.
At first, he called me vindictive. Later, he said we needed to work together for Bryce’s sake.
In the last message, he asked whether I would tell the Hartleys I had spoken while upset.
I had been upset.
I had also been accurate.
I didn’t call him back.
Bryce sent an email just before Christmas.
It was long enough that I printed it because reading on my phone gave me a headache.
He wrote about growing up between two homes. About feeling that Whitney understood the things he wanted. About how I sometimes sounded critical when he bought something expensive.
Some of it deserved thought.
I had made comments about his SUV. I had asked why he needed a downtown apartment that cost so much. Sometimes I had turned worry into a lecture.
I could admit those things.
But none of them explained why he had told Caroline I was a stranger.
Near the end, he wrote, “I understand some of my decisions were hurtful, and I regret the pain they caused.”
I read that sentence several times.
Then I replied.
“I’m willing to talk about what was difficult between us, including things I could have handled better. We also need to talk plainly about your decision to lie about who I was. When you’re ready for that conversation, let me know.”
He didn’t answer.
I bought him a Christmas card and left it unsigned on the kitchen counter for three days.