Chapter 1 - THE RABBIT
The first thing Margaret Bennett did when she saw the soaked little girl at my wedding was take the stuffed rabbit out of her hands.
Not ask who she was.
Not ask why an eight-year-old child was standing inside a luxury reception with rainwater dripping from her sleeves.
Margaret simply crossed the ballroom, grabbed the rabbit and threw it.
“Take your filthy junk and get out of my son’s wedding.”
The rabbit hit the polished floor and skidded beneath a champagne table.
Every conversation around us died.
I was still wearing my wedding dress.
Daniel and I had been married forty-three minutes.
Our guests were drinking champagne beneath white roses and crystal chandeliers.
Someone had just announced dinner.
And my new mother-in-law had decided the evening needed a child publicly humiliated before appetizers.
The little girl froze.
Dark hair stuck to her cheeks.
Wet shoes.
Old stuffed rabbit now lying fifteen feet away.
Margaret moved toward her again.
I got there first.
“Margaret.”
She barely looked at me.
“She slipped past security.”
“She’s a child.”
“She doesn’t belong here.”
The girl took one step backward.
Margaret reached toward her.
I stepped between them.
“Stop.”
“Claire, stay out of this.”
She tried to move around me.
I blocked her again.
Her shoulder hit mine.
And I slapped her.
Hard.
The sound carried farther than the quartet.
Margaret staggered backward.
Somebody gasped.
Daniel stopped halfway toward us.
My hand immediately started shaking.
I had stopped Margaret from reaching the girl.
I could have done that again.
I did not need the slap.
I knew it before anyone said it.
Still, when Margaret looked at me in disbelief, I did not apologize.
“Don’t touch her.”
Daniel reached us.
“Claire.”
“Get her away from the kid.”
He looked at his mother.
Then at the little girl.
Then at me.
His expression sharpened.
“Mom, back up.”
Margaret’s face changed.
“You’re taking her side?”
Daniel stared at her.
“She’s eight.”
Apparently this family had reached the point where that needed clarification.
I crouched in front of the girl.
“What’s your name?”
“Lily.”
“Lily what?”
“Carter.”
“Is someone here with you?”
“My grandma.”
“Where?”
Lily pointed toward the foyer.
“She couldn’t get past the man.”
Security.
Of course.
I turned toward our wedding coordinator.
“Find her grandmother. Now.”
The coordinator hurried off.
Daniel went for the stuffed rabbit.
It was old enough that one ear had faded from gray to a strange blue-white color.
A red thread repair ran along its stomach.
The impact against the floor had torn part of the side seam open.
Daniel picked it up carefully.
Something slipped out.
A folded photograph.
It landed facedown.
He stopped.
I reached it first.
“Wait.”
Lily looked at me.
“My grandma said to give it to the bride.”
I looked at her.
“The rabbit?”
She nodded.
“And the picture?”
“I don’t know. She said it was inside.”
That made Daniel and me exchange a look.
I unfolded the photograph.
For a second, the room disappeared.
The woman in the picture was twenty-something.
Dark blond hair tied back.
Cheap winter coat.
Tired smile.
I knew that face better than my own.
“That’s my mother.”
Daniel leaned over my shoulder.
The photograph had been taken outside a plain brick building.
My mother was holding a little boy.
Three or four years old.
Brown hair.
Round cheeks.
One hand around the same stuffed rabbit Daniel was now holding.
Daniel took the photograph from me.
His expression changed slowly.
Confusion first.
Then concentration.
Then something else.
He brought it closer.
“That coat.”
“What?”
“The kid.”
He stared at the photograph.
“I had one like that.”
Margaret had stopped arguing.
I noticed before Daniel did.
She was staring at the picture from across the room.
Her face had gone rigid.
Daniel looked at her.
Then back at the photograph.
His thumb moved over one corner.
A date had been stamped there.
NOV 1994.
Daniel would have been three.
He turned it over.
There was handwriting.
Faded blue ink.
Evelyn + Danny. Harbor House.
Daniel looked at me.
“Evelyn was your mother?”
“Yes.”
He knew her as Evelyn Morgan.
My mother had remarried when I was five.
Before that, she had used her maiden name.
Shaw.
I had almost no records from that part of her life.
Daniel looked again at the boy.
Then at his mother.
“Why is Claire’s mother holding me?”
Margaret went pale.
Not annoyed.
Not offended.
Afraid.
Daniel crossed the room.
“Mom.”
She shook her head.
“Not here.”
“What is Harbor House?”
“Daniel.”
“What is it?”
Margaret looked around at the guests.
Seventy people pretending not to hear.
That mattered to her.
It no longer mattered to him.
“Answer me.”
She lowered her voice.
“It was a family shelter.”
Daniel stopped.
My stomach tightened.
“What kind of shelter?”
Margaret’s eyes met mine.
She did not answer.
Daniel looked at the photograph.
Then at the stuffed rabbit.
Something in his face changed again.
“Was this mine?”
Margaret closed her eyes.
There.
Daniel did not need the answer spoken.
He looked at Lily.
“Where did your grandmother get this?”
Lily shrugged.
“She had it forever.”
Our wedding coordinator hurried back.
An older woman followed her.
Late sixties.
Wet gray hair.
A cane.
Angry enough that the security guard behind her had decided distance was wise.
“Lily.”
The girl ran to her.
The woman wrapped one arm around her granddaughter.
Then looked at Margaret.
For the first time that night, Margaret looked as though she wanted to leave her own son's wedding.
The older woman saw me.
“Claire?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes filled.
“You look like Evelyn.”
I stared.
“You knew my mother.”
“For twenty-six years.”
Margaret said:
“Ruth.”
The woman turned.
“Margaret.”
No affection.
No surprise.
History.
Daniel held up the photograph.
“Why is Claire’s mother holding me?”
Ruth Carter looked at him for a long moment.
Then at Margaret.
Margaret shook her head once.
A warning.
Ruth ignored it.
“Because for seventeen days in 1994, your mother wasn’t allowed to take you back to your father.”
The reception room seemed to tilt.
Daniel stared at Margaret.
“What?”
Ruth continued.
“And during those seventeen days, Evelyn Shaw was one of the people authorized to keep you safe.”
Margaret stepped forward.
“That is not the whole story.”
Ruth looked at her.
“No.”
Then she glanced at the rabbit in Daniel’s hands.
“It never was.”
I stood in my wedding dress between my dead mother’s friend, my new husband and the woman who had spent three years treating me like an infection.
For the first time, I wondered whether Margaret’s hatred of me had started before she ever met me.
May you like
Not because of who I was.
Because of whose daughter I was.
