Chapter 3 - NO SEAT FOR CLAIRE
The seating chart stood on an easel outside the ballroom.
Melanie and Ethan were centered at the head table.
Our parents sat at Table One with Ethan’s parents and grandparents.
My name did not appear anywhere.
I checked twice, though the truth was obvious after the first look.
The wedding planner hurried over when she saw me.
“Admiral Bennett, I am so sorry.”
“Call me Claire today.”
She lowered her voice.
“Your reservation was removed yesterday.”
“By whom?”
Her eyes flicked toward my father.
“I was told you had declined.”
Dad was watching us from across the corridor.
He lifted his champagne glass as though he had won something.
I felt Luis step beside me.
“Say the word,” he murmured.
“And do what?”
“I can think of several options, none of which would survive a legal review.”
“Stand down, Commander.”
“Reluctantly, ma’am.”
The planner offered to squeeze another chair beside the service entrance.
I told her not to rearrange anything.
I had spent enough years eating meals over charts, beside engines, and under red night lighting to survive one wedding without a chair.
Then my mother appeared.
She looked older than she had on the phone that morning.
“Claire, I told him this was cruel.”
“But you let him do it.”
“You know how he gets.”
“Yes.”
I kept my voice low.
“That is why he still gets that way.”
Her face crumpled slightly.
For a moment, I wanted to take the words back.
Then she touched the front of my uniform near the pocket holding the mysterious note.
“You look like him,” she whispered.
“Like Dad?”
She pulled her hand away.
“No.”
Before I could ask what she meant, Melanie called for her from the bridal suite.
Mom turned, but I caught her wrist.
“What happened on June twelfth, thirty-six years ago?”
Every trace of color left her face.
Across the corridor, my father’s glass stopped halfway to his mouth.
My mother stared at me with naked fear.
“Who told you that date?”
“I asked you first.”
Dad crossed the space between us so quickly that two guests had to move aside.
“Not here,” he said.
The words were not angry.
May you like
They were terrified.
That frightened me more than his anger ever had.
