“You’re marrying my father for me?”
“Then tell me what IS happening, Lydia. Tell me right now. Look me in the eye and explain how my best friend ends up engaged to my widowed father in less than a month.”
Her eyes filled.
For one second, I thought she was going to tell me the truth.
Her lips parted.
And then she whispered, “I made a promise.”
“Tell me right now.”
“A promise to who?”
But she only shook her head.
That answer haunted me far more than if she’d said nothing at all.
“Fine. I want you out of this house,” I said.
“Honey, this is MY house,” my father said.
“Then I want ME out of this house.”
“A promise to who?”
I grabbed my keys off the counter.
“Please don’t leave like this,” Lydia whispered. “Please. There are things I can’t say yet, but I need you to trust me.”
“Trust you?” I turned at the door. “I have known you since we were eleven years old. I held your hair when your mother yelled at you. I drove three hours to your graduation. And the second my mother was gone, you crawled into her bed.”
“I need you to trust me.”
“That is not fair.”
“None of this is fair, Lydia. None of it.”
I slammed the door so hard the porch swing rattled.
***
They got married two weeks later at the courthouse.
Lydia mailed me the invitation.
I tore it in half and dropped it in the trash.
They got married two weeks later.
My father called the morning of the wedding.
“It would mean everything to me if you came today.”
“Have a nice ceremony, Dad.”
“Sweetheart.”
“Don’t.”
I hung up.
“Have a nice ceremony, Dad.”
For a year, that was how it went.
He called on holidays, and I answered with one-word replies and an excuse to get off the phone.
Lydia sent cards. Birthday cards. Christmas cards.
I stacked them, unopened, in a shoebox in my closet.
One day, the shoebox fell while I was rearranging my closet.
One card landed on the floor, open, the message visible.
It sent a chill down my spine.
Lydia sent cards.
You don’t have to forgive me, but someday I hope you’ll understand why this had to happen.
I stared at it for a long moment.
Then I crumpled the cards back into the shoebox and put it back in the closet.
But for weeks afterward, I couldn’t help but wonder what she meant.
***
My friends stopped asking about her and my dad.
I built a small, careful life around the shape of the wound and told myself I was healing.
I couldn’t help but wonder what she meant.
Some nights I would dream about my mother.
She’d be standing in the kitchen, and she’d look up at me like she wanted to say something important.
I always woke up before she did.
***
But no secret can stay buried forever.
And everything started becoming clear on my birthday.
No secret can stay buried forever.
I was sitting at my desk, pretending the date meant nothing.
My coworker Marcus tapped my shoulder around lunchtime.
“There’s a woman at the front. Says she has a delivery for you.”
“Tell her to leave it,” I muttered.
“She insists on handing it to you herself.”
I sighed and pushed away from my desk.
“She has a delivery for you.”
I expected flowers from a guilty cousin.
Instead, I rounded the corner and froze.
Lydia stood by the glass doors.
Her hair was unwashed, pulled into a knot at the back of her head.
In her hands she held a small black box, wrapped in plain twine.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, keeping my voice low.
I rounded the corner and froze.
“I needed to see you. Just for a minute.”
“You don’t get minutes from me anymore, Lydia.”
She flinched.
I watched her swallow whatever she’d planned to say, then start again.
“I know. I know what you think of me. I know what you’ve told yourself for a year.”
“I told myself the truth.”
“I needed to see you.”
“You told yourself a story,” she whispered. “And I let you, because I promised I would.”
I felt my jaw lock. “Promised who?”
She didn’t answer.
Instead, she lifted the black box toward me with both hands.
“Please. Take it.”
“I don’t want anything from you.”
“Please. Take it.”
“This is why I married him. It’s time you knew the truth.”
I stared at the box.
“Open it when you’re alone,” she added. “Not here. Somewhere quiet.”
“Lydia, I’m not playing games with you.”
“I’m not playing.” Her voice cracked. “I made a promise, and I kept it, even though it cost me so much. Please… just open it. You must want your own answers.”
“This is why I married him.”
I looked at her hands.
They were trembling the way my grandmother’s used to shake when she was sick.
She set the box carefully at my feet.
Then she turned and walked out the door.
I stood there for a long moment, staring at the black box on the polished floor.
Marcus appeared beside me, frowning.
She set the box carefully at my feet.
“Friend of yours?” he asked.
“Used to be,” I said.
“You want me to throw that out?”
I almost said yes.
I almost kicked it across the lobby.
But Lydia had said it contained answers, and I had to know the truth.
I almost kicked it across the lobby.
“No,” I said. “I’ll take it.”
I carried the box back to my desk and set it on the corner.
***
For the rest of the afternoon, it sat there, pulling at the edges of my concentration.
Three times I almost dropped it in the trash bin.
Three times I almost opened it.
At five o’clock I tucked the box under my arm and walked to my car.
