Margaret glanced at the cardigan.
“Then perhaps you should have dressed her appropriately. There are photographers everywhere.”
She told a staff member to seat us at the back.
We ended up at table twenty-nine, half hidden behind a pillar near the service doors.
I wanted to leave. Lily said softly, “You promised dinner, Mom.”
So we stayed.
I thought I was teaching her that a promise mattered. I didn’t yet understand what promise she believed she had made to herself.
During the ceremony, Lily hardly moved.
She watched Vanessa come down the aisle in a gown with an enormous train. She watched Graham take her hands. When everyone applauded, she clapped twice and stopped.
At the reception, she kept putting one hand into the pocket of her cardigan.
“Are you feeling okay?” I whispered.
She nodded, then looked toward the head table.
“Mom, do you think people who lie can still be happy?”
I assumed something at school was troubling her.
“Everyone tells a lie sometimes,” I said. “But big lies can hurt people. Why?”
“What if they hurt somebody and nobody knows?”
I touched her forehead, checking for a fever.
“Lily, did somebody hurt you?”
She shook her head quickly.
“Not like that.”
“Did someone at school say something unkind?”
“No.”
Before I could ask another question, Vanessa came to our table.
“What are you two whispering about?” she asked.
Lily looked directly at her.
“I understand more than you think.”
My sister’s smile vanished.
“What have you been telling her?” Vanessa demanded.
“Nothing,” I said. “I don’t even know what this is about.”
Vanessa’s gaze dropped to Lily’s cardigan pocket. Then she looked away and forced her smile back into place.
