Chapter 4 - The Bride Without a Honeymoon
I found Lauren outside the bridal suite holding her shoes and a canvas tote bag.
Her veil hung from one wrist.
She looked twenty-two instead of twenty-eight, like the girl who used to crawl into my bed during thunderstorms and pretend she had only come to borrow a charger.
“Where’s Evan?” I asked.
“At the bar.”
“Did he know you called me?”
“No.”
We took the service elevator.
In the parking garage, she stopped beside my car.
“I don’t want to go to Mom’s.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I don’t want a lecture either.”
“I left my presentation slides at home.”
She made a small, broken sound that might have become a laugh on another night.
At my house, I put towels in the guest bathroom and found clothes she could sleep in.
She emerged without makeup.
The red marks around her eyes made me want to find every person who had hurt her.
Then I remembered that some of those people had included me, however unintentionally.
I made tea.
She sat at the kitchen island.
“Mom told me you volunteered to pay for the whole wedding.”
“I didn’t.”
“She said you wanted it to be a surprise.”
“That sounds convenient.”
Lauren stared into her mug.
“I wanted to believe her.”
“Why?”
“Because it felt good.”
Her honesty surprised me.
She took a breath.
“Because I’ve spent my entire life being told you were successful but lonely, and I was loved. I think I needed something to show for that.”
I sat opposite her.
“Lauren.”
“I know how awful it sounds.”
“It sounds like something we both grew up hearing.”
She rubbed her bare ring finger.
“Did you really pay my rent after law school?”
“Yes.”
“Mom said she did.”
I said nothing.
“How much?”
“Lauren—”
“How much?”
“Thirty-one thousand over eighteen months.”
She closed her eyes.
“The emergency dental work?”
“Yes.”
“The car repair?”
“Yes.”
She pushed the mug away.
“I thanked her.”
“I know.”
“You were there.”
“I know.”
Something changed in her expression.
Not simply anger.
The sickening realization that her memories had been edited by someone she trusted.
She stood and walked to the window.
“I was horrible to you.”
“Sometimes.”
“You’re supposed to say I wasn’t.”
“I’m trying something new.”
She wiped her face.
“Okay.”
In the morning, we sat with Nina over a secure call.
Lauren brought her own documents.
Bank statements.
The apartment lease.
Loan paperwork Evan had asked her to sign during the engagement.
Nina did not represent her, but she explained why Lauren needed independent advice and gave her names to contact.
One document made Lauren go still.
A personal guarantee attached to a business credit agreement.
She remembered signing an electronic packet Evan described as paperwork for a future house.
The guarantee was not for a house.
It exposed her to obligations connected to his failing event business.
“I didn’t read it,” she whispered.
Nina’s expression remained calm.
“Then tell your attorney exactly what you were told and what you signed. Don’t guess. Don’t delete anything.”
After the call, Lauren stared at her phone.
Evan had sent thirty-seven messages.
First apologies.
Then explanations.
Then anger.
Then a photograph of them kissing beneath the wedding arch.
Don’t throw this away because your sister needs attention.
Lauren showed it to me.
For the first time, the manipulation looked almost embarrassingly obvious when neither of us was inside it alone.
“I need to collect my things,” she said.
“We’ll arrange it safely.”
We went two days later with a friend of hers and a scheduled pickup time.
Evan stood in the apartment doorway wearing the sweater I had bought him last Christmas.
He looked at me.
“Enjoying yourself?”
“No.”
He turned to Lauren.
“Your mother knew the money was temporary. Claire’s making it criminal because she hates that you’re happy.”
Lauren looked around the apartment.
The expensive speaker.
The leather chairs.
The framed photograph of the honeymoon destination.
“How much of this is paid for?”
He blinked.
“What?”
“How much do you actually own?”
“You’re letting her poison you.”
Lauren picked up a box.
“No. I’m asking you a question.”
He did not answer.
She carried the box past him.
In the car, she opened a drawer organizer she had taken from their shared desk.
Inside lay an envelope addressed in Mom’s handwriting.
There were copies of old company forms.
My signature appeared on three of them.
Tucked between the pages was a sticky note.
Use whichever looks cleanest.
Lauren read it.
Then she passed it to me without speaking.
May you like
For twenty-one days, I had wondered how Evan had obtained the signature.
Now my mother had answered in her own handwriting.
