I Paid for the Wedding, So Who Was Mother of the Bride? novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Knew What

In the parking garage Hannah and Joanna find they mean different things by Cynthia; Russell steers Hannah away, and the final payment is quietly redirected.

I walked out of the ballroom with the binder against my chest and did not stop until I reached the parking garage.

The concrete on level two was cold, and my car was parked at the far end under a flickering light.

I had my keys out when I heard running behind me.

"Mom! Wait."

Hannah came down the ramp with her sweatshirt sleeves pulled over her hands.

She stopped a few feet away, breathing hard.

"You can't just leave," she said. "Everyone saw."

"Everyone saw me find out," I said. "That's different."

She glanced back at the stairwell door, then at me.

"I didn't want you to find out like that," she said. "Dad said you'd already talked about it. He said you told him it was fine."

"Told him what was fine?"

"Cynthia." She said it fast. "That she's in my life now. That I've met her. That you said you'd stay out of it until after the wedding."

I stared at her.

For a moment I couldn't make the sentence fit into anything I knew.

"Why has my husband's vice president been in your life?" I asked.

"Mom."

"Hannah, I've never heard you say her name. You've talked to her?"

"In April." Her voice dropped. "Mom, you really didn't know?"

"I know the seating chart says she's your mother."

"It doesn't say that. It says..." She stopped, and her face went pale.

All the color left her face.

"He told me you knew," she said. "He sat me down in May, in the kitchen, with you at your Tuesday class. He said you'd known for years and that it was too painful for you to talk about."

"Known what for years?"

She didn't answer.

I watched her decide, and I watched her not do it.

"Hannah. Look at me."

"I can't," she whispered. "I promised him I wouldn't say it first."

I stepped forward and took both her hands out of her sleeves.

They were cold.

On her left wrist, below the cuff of the sweatshirt, was the little crescent mark she had been born with.

I had traced it with my thumb so many times when she was small.

"I'm your mother," I said. "Whatever he's told you, you can tell me."

Her eyes filled.

"I know you are," she said. "That's why it's so bad."

The stairwell door banged open.

"There you are." Russell came toward us with his jacket over his arm, unhurried. "Cedric's been calling you, sweetheart. He's worried."

"Dad, she didn't know," Hannah said.

"Of course she knew." He put an arm around her shoulders and turned her toward the stairs. "Jo's upset, and she has every right to be. We'll talk after the wedding, all of us, properly."

"Russell, what does Cynthia have to do with my daughter?"

He looked at me with real kindness.

It was the face he used on clients whose shipments had gone missing.

"Not in a garage," he said. "You're tired. You've done so much. Let it go for twelve days, Jo, and I promise you'll get every answer."

"Mom," Hannah said over her shoulder, "I'm sorry."

The stairwell door closed behind them.

I stood alone under the flickering light.

My hands were shaking, so I put the binder on the hood of my car and took out my phone, because I needed something ordinary to look at.

An email had arrived from the hotel while I was talking.

The subject line read: Updated billing and host of record.

I opened it.

"Dear Mrs. Haldane. At the request of Mr. Haldane's office, the host of record for the Haldane-Mercer wedding has been changed to Haldane Freight Events. The final balance of $84,000 will be billed to the company card, and you will no longer be listed as the contact for payment."

I read it three times, standing in a concrete garage with the binder cold under my hand.

Every deposit had been mine.

Every signature had been mine.

And in one morning, my husband had written me out of my own daughter's wedding.

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