Chapter 8 - THE WOMAN IN THE LAST ROW
Sophie remembered the woman.
That was the part that broke Chloe.
“I saw you,” my youngest daughter whispered.
Chloe slowly lowered her hands.
Sophie looked as if she had suddenly opened a door inside an old memory.
“I didn't know it was you.”
She described the recital.
Sixth grade.
December.
Snow outside.
I remembered it clearly because Sophie's solo had been moved to the second half and she nearly cried from nerves.
Sophie remembered looking toward the back row.
A woman in a dark coat had been watching her.
“When I finished singing, you were crying.”
Chloe's face crumpled.
“Yes.”
“You left before I could see you.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I was ashamed.”
Sophie shook her head.
“No. You were scared of being ashamed.”
There was a difference.
Even Chloe seemed to understand it.
She admitted there had been other times.
Jessi's college graduation.
Emily's regional championship.
Hannah's first professional dance performance.
She sometimes sat in parking lots.
Sometimes paid investigators.
Sometimes watched social media through anonymous accounts.
Never once did she knock on our door.
Jessi suddenly looked toward Emma.
“The account.”
Emma understood.
Six months earlier, a woman using the name Claire Harrison had begun following Jessi online.
She commented on wedding planning posts.
Asked about the venue.
Asked whether all six sisters would attend.
Jessi became suspicious.
Emma traced the profile through an email Chloe had once used.
That was how the two young women found each other.
That was how Jessi learned Chloe had been watching.
And that was how the crate reached her.
Chloe stared at Jessi.
“You knew I was coming before I texted your father.”
“Yes.”
“Then why let me come?”
Jessi looked around the decorated ballroom.
Flowers.
Candles.
Family photographs.
One hundred fifty witnesses.
“Because I wanted one place where you couldn't rewrite what happened afterward.”
Chloe seemed to shrink.
Then Daniel said:
“There's something else she hasn't told you.”
Chloe spun toward him.
“Don't.”
Daniel's voice was tired.
“She didn't come here because she suddenly wanted reconciliation.”
Jessi's expression hardened.
“I know.”
“No,” Daniel said. “You don't know all of it.”
He removed his phone.
Three weeks earlier, after filing for divorce, Daniel had given Chloe one condition before discussing any private settlement:
Tell your daughters the truth.
Chloe had refused.
Then she discovered Jessi's wedding would bring all six daughters together.
That was why she came.
Not to apologize.
She wanted a photograph.
One smiling photograph with Jessi.
May you like
Something she could show Daniel as proof that her daughters had “forgiven” her.
And Chloe had already hired a photographer to capture it.
