Her Wedding Dress novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Brother Nobody Mentions

Rhett, an oncologist estranged from his family, gives Autumn water and his jacket and warns her not to sign anything. She starts recording and walks into the family room, where a lawyer's pen is already laid across a paper turned toward her chair.

"You're the brother nobody mentions," I said.

"That's me." He set the carry-on against the wall. "My mother thinks I died in Chicago. Spiritually."

I almost laughed, and I hated that I almost did.

"How did you know?"

"A cousin texted me last night. She said Clifton was doing something stupid and somebody should come." He glanced at the ballroom doors. "She didn't say what."

"So you flew in."

"I took the first flight. It landed late."

Behind the doors, the quartet started something slow.

His eyes went to my gown, then to my stomach, then to my face.

"I looked through the gap when I came in," he said. "The woman in white at the front is not you."

"No."

"I'm sorry."

"For what? You weren't there."

"That's what I'm sorry for."

He said it flatly, without asking me to forgive him.

I didn't know what to do with that, so I did nothing.

"Is the ceremony finished?" he asked.

"Not yet."

"Then I can't stop it."

"You couldn't have stopped it anyway," I said. "I was in the room when it was decided."

He rubbed the bridge of his nose, which had a crook in it.

"Have you eaten today?"

I stared at him.

"It's a real question. You're six months along, you're in a cold hallway, and you've gone gray around the mouth."

"I had half a lemon pastry," I said, "and it was somebody else's."

He unzipped the carry-on, took out a bottle of water and a granola bar, and held both out.

"I'm a doctor," he said. "It's a reflex. Take them."

I took them.

The water was warm, and the granola bar was a little crushed, and it was the first kind thing anyone had done for me all day.

I drank half the bottle before I could stop.

"What kind of doctor?"

"Cancer. Oncology."

My hand stopped halfway to my mouth.

"Then you can tell me something," I said. "Clifton says Lydia has a few months."

His face did not change.

"I can't talk about a patient I haven't seen."

"That isn't a no."

"It isn't a yes," he said.

He took off his suit jacket and put it around my shoulders before I could object.

It was warm and smelled like airplane and soap.

"Why do you care?" I asked. "You don't know me."

"My brother is the one who made a mess. Somebody in my family should carry some of it."

It was a good answer, and he had said it a little too fast.

I let it go.

The ballroom doors opened.

Applause rolled into the hallway, and guests streamed out in silk and bright colors, talking over each other.

I stepped behind a pillar, and Rhett moved in front of me without being asked.

People walked past us, and not one of them looked at the man in a wrinkled suit or at the pregnant woman behind him.

Lydia and Clifton were near the front of the crowd.

Her hand was pinned to his arm, and Clifton was smiling at someone's compliment.

I wanted to be sick.

"Autumn." Rhett's voice dropped. "Whatever happens in the next hour, don't sign anything."

"Why would I sign anything?"

"Because that's what my mother does after a wedding. She sends a lawyer."

The coordinator in the black headset pushed through the crowd and found me.

She looked at the man in front of me and back at my face.

"Mrs. Ashdown. The family room is ready for the photographs. Mr. Ashdown's parents are waiting."

"And his brother?" Rhett said.

She looked at him blankly.

"I'm not on your list," he said. "I'm not surprised."

She turned back to me, and her eyes slid away.

"Mr. Ashdown also asked me to say that his attorney would like a few minutes first."

Rhett shut his eyes briefly.

"I'll come with you," he said.

"No." I took the jacket off my shoulders and handed it back. "You said you can't stop it. Fine."

"Autumn."

"I want to hear what they think I cost."

I took my phone out of my bag and started the recorder.

I slid it back in with the screen dark.

Then I followed the coordinator down the corridor, with my hand on my stomach and Clifton's brother three steps behind me.

She opened the door to the family room and stepped aside.

My mother sat on the sofa. My father sat beside her with his hands between his knees.

Tyler leaned against the wall with his phone.

Clifton's mother stood beside the window, looking out.

A man in a gray suit sat at the long table with a single sheet of paper and a pen laid across it.

The paper was already turned toward my chair.

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