Chapter 5: Wedding Fund

We watched the raw kitchen file in the back room of the warehouse, among the pallets of paper napkins.

Bea sat on an upturned crate with the laptop on her knees.

My father stood by the door with his arms folded and did not sit.

"Press play," I said.

Brooks's kitchen filled the screen, his marble counter and his espresso machine.

I was at the island with a folder of papers.

My own voice came out calm and flat.

"I'm not saying no, Brooks. I'm saying let my lawyer read it first."

"Your lawyer is a man who sells your father's insurance," Brooks said, off to the side of the frame. "Mine wrote this."

"Your side of the schedule is blank."

"Mine is being provided."

"Provided when?"

"When it matters. I don't have to prove myself to you, Sylvie."

Bea paused it.

"That's the part he cut," she said. "Every minute of you being calm."

"Keep going."

On the screen, I got louder.

I watched myself lean over the counter, my hand flat on the page.

It was the angriest I had been in my life, and I had been right.

"You want mine itemized to the dollar and yours left empty."

"I want you to sign it, and then it's over."

"Or what?"

Brooks stepped into the frame.

He stood very close and said, slowly, "Or the party doesn't happen. And your father finds out why."

My father made a sound by the door.

Bea hit pause again.

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