Chapter 1 - The Drawing on the Church Steps
“This wedding is a lie.”
The words came through the microphone just as my new husband reached for my hand.
Every guest on the white stone steps of St. Agnes Church turned toward the man in the black suit standing below us. Marcello DeLuca looked exactly as I remembered him: dark hair, squared shoulders, that terrible stillness before he did something he couldn't take back.
I hadn't seen him in six years.
My daughter was six.
For one stupid second I thought I could make the numbers invisible by closing my eyes.
“Give me that microphone,” Patrick said.
Marcello didn't move. He was staring at me, not at the photographer or the flowers or Patrick's hand tightening around my elbow.
“I tried to ask you a question last week, Anna,” he said. “You wouldn't answer it. So answer me now.”
“You're frightening her,” I said.
“Then tell me why.”
Our flower girl, Mia, stood beside the last row of guests in a pale pink dress, holding the paper she'd worked on during the ceremony. A gust of Savannah's warm afternoon wind lifted it out of her fingers.
Patrick stepped off the stairs. “Get out of here.”
The paper landed at Marcello's shoes. He bent to pick it up and stopped breathing.
Two figures stood beneath a yellow sun, drawn in thick purple crayon. One was a little girl with brown curls. The other was a tall man in a black suit. Their hands touched in the middle. Across the top, in Mia's uncertain letters, she'd written MY DADDY.
I could feel my pulse in the seams of my wedding dress.
“Where did she see my face?” Marcello asked.
Mia slipped past the photographer. Before I could reach her, she'd wrapped both arms around his leg.
“Daddy?” she whispered.
The microphone sagged in his hand. I had seen Marcello angry, drunk with victory, sick with worry. I had never seen him look breakable.
He lifted his eyes to me. “You never told me.”
“Mia, come to me,” I said gently.
She held on harder. “But I found him, Mommy. You said he was far away.”
Patrick caught my wrist. “Do not speak to him.”
“Let go,” I said.
His fingers loosened, but his smile stayed fixed for our guests. “This is a private matter. Everyone, please head to the reception. The shuttle is waiting.”
No one obeyed. Phones were already raised. Patrick approached Marcello, his polished shoes striking each step like a warning.
“She's my stepdaughter now,” he said. “You have no reason to be here.”
“Not your decision,” Marcello replied.
He placed the microphone on the wall. Then he looked down at Mia, not quite daring to touch her.
“Hi,” he said, his voice barely above the street noise. “I'm Marcello.”
“I know. Grandma had your picture in a book.”
My mother had died thirteen months ago. She'd hidden that picture in her favorite cookbook, between two stained pages about peach cobbler. Mia had found it when we were clearing the kitchen. I'd told her it was someone I knew a long time ago. I hadn't told her how long I'd loved him.
“Is he really my dad?” Mia asked me.
I sank onto the stone step. The satin pooled around my shoes like something belonging to another woman.
“Yes,” I said. “I believe he is.”
There was a small, astonished sound from Marcello, and then a murmur from the guests. It felt cruel to give an answer and immediately take it back with uncertainty, but a resemblance and an old photograph weren't a laboratory test. Mia deserved both honesty and care.
Patrick crouched on her other side. “Honey, your mom is upset. Let's go inside.”
Mia moved toward me, clutching the drawing against her dress. “Did I do something bad?”
“No.” I reached for her. “Not one thing.”
Marcello finally stood. “I have a right to know what happened.”
“You have the right to ask,” I said. “You don't have the right to turn her life into a performance.”
His face changed. He looked at the guests, the phones, the wedding flowers hanging crooked from the railing. He seemed to see the scene he'd created for the first time.
“Put your phones away,” he told them, then looked ashamed of how much that sounded like an order. “Please.”
My friend Celia came forward, took Mia's hand, and offered to walk with her into the church office where it was quiet. Mia insisted on carrying the drawing herself. Before she went, she turned back to Marcello.
“Are you going to disappear again?”
He opened his mouth. No words came.
“Don't promise her anything right now,” I said.
Mia followed Celia inside. The heavy church door closed behind them.
Patrick stepped between Marcello and me. “One more move toward my family and I'll call the police.”
“Call them,” Marcello said, “if that makes you feel safer.”
“It will,” Patrick replied.
“You tried to contact me?” I asked him.
“Every way I knew how. Until I got a letter saying you never wanted to hear from me again.”
I stared. “I never wrote that letter.”
Marcello's eyes cut to Patrick. Patrick was frowning, but the frown came half a beat too late.
“What letter?” he asked.
I knew then that this wasn't only about the six years I'd spent being afraid.
“The last time I tried to tell Marcello about our baby,” I said, “a man came to my apartment and told me what would happen if I tried again.”
Marcello went very still.
“Who sent him?”
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I looked toward the church door where my daughter had disappeared.
“That's what I need to find out,” I said. “Because the man who threatened me was wearing your father's ring.”
