The kind of smile powerful people use when they’ve already decided exactly how a conversation will end.
“That,” he said calmly, “is an excellent question.”
Claire crossed her arms immediately.
“I think someone should answer it.”
Charles glanced around at the lavish wedding decorations.
The imported roses.
The marble fountains.
The string quartet.
The photographers.
Then he looked at Andrew.
“You told your mother there wasn’t room near the front?”
Andrew looked sick.
“Charles—”
“No. Let’s do this honestly.”
Guests had fully stopped pretending not to listen now.
At the edges of the ceremony, even servers carrying champagne trays stood still.
Because everyone understood instinctively:
something much larger than family tension was unfolding.
Andrew rubbed one hand over his face.
“Mom, I didn’t want you uncomfortable.”
I stared at him.
“By hiding me in the back row?”
Claire jumped in quickly.
“We weren’t hiding anyone. We just needed everything organized a certain way.”
There it was.
The exact sentence she had spoken to me two weeks earlier during the rehearsal dinner.
“We need everything to look a certain way.”
At the time, she smiled while saying it.
