“Hannah.”
And a voice on the other side, very small:
“Dad, I’m here.
But I’m not supposed to come out.”
I lifted the handle and pulled and the door opened.
She was sitting on the floor between a commercial washer and a rolling cart of folded linens, with her knees up and her arms around them.
The basket was on the tile next to her.
Some of the petals had come out and been stepped on at some point, and there were two of them stuck to the hem of her dress.
I went down on both knees on that floor.
“Who told you to stay in here?”
She had the satin ribbon wound around two fingers so tightly that the ends of them had gone white.
“Pamela said I had to stay until the wedding was over.”
