Chapter 2: What the Envelope Remembered
The guests hadn't moved.
A hundred people frozen between the pews, watching Ethan hold his bride's wrist in the air like a question no one wanted to answer.
He let go slowly.
Victoria pulled her hand back and smoothed her dress.
When she spoke, her voice was almost calm.
"She's a child, Ethan.
Someone put her up to this."
"The checks have your signature."
"Signatures can be copied."
Lucy hadn't moved from the center of the aisle.
She was still holding the envelope, watching Victoria the way a person watches something they've already decided not to trust.
"Mom said you came to the hospital," Lucy said.
"After I was born.
You told her Ethan never wanted to see her again.
You told her he said the baby wasn't his and she should take the money and go."
The silence in the chapel changed shape.
Ethan turned to Victoria.
"I never said that."
"Of course you didn't." Victoria's voice dropped.
"Because I handled it.
She was going to ruin everything we had planned, Ethan.
Everything."
It wasn't a denial.
Lucy reached back into the envelope and pulled out one more item — a folded piece of paper, older than the checks, the crease nearly worn through.
"Mom wrote this the night she decided to leave.
She said if anything ever happened to her, I should find you."
Ethan reached for it.
Victoria's hand came up again — then stopped.
Because the priest had stepped forward.
And he was looking at Victoria like he recognized something he wished he didn't.
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What's written in that letter — and why does the priest look like he already knows?
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The full truth is more devastating than anyone in that chapel expected.
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