Paige looked up as I approached.
“Don’t,” she whispered.
I stopped in front of her.
Her eyes were red now. Her lips trembled.
“I didn’t know,” she said.
“You didn’t know what?”
“That Mom…” She looked at the letter on the floor. “That she saw me like that.”
I bent down, picked up the letter, and handed it back to her.
“She saw all of us.”
Paige shook her head. “No. She saw you. She always saw you.”
There it was.
The sentence under every fight we had ever had.
The truth wearing no makeup.
I heard someone behind us sniffle. My aunt, probably. She had always loved tears when they were not hers.
I ignored everyone.
For the first time that day, my wedding guests disappeared.
There was only me and my sister.
Two women standing in front of an altar, carrying the same childhood in two different bodies.
