Several guests had begun drifting away from the table.
My sister quietly led two children inside.
Nobody wanted to watch.
Nobody could quite bring themselves to look away either.
Finally, Mark spoke.
“I was trying to fix something.”
Lauren stared at him.
“Fix what?”
He looked toward the ground.
I handed Lauren the envelope.
Her fingers trembled around it.
“Open it,” I told her.
Mark stepped forward.
“Lauren, please.”
She backed away from him.
That hurt him.
I could see it.
But I could also see something else.
He had expected this moment eventually.
He just hadn’t expected it to happen that afternoon.
Lauren tore open the envelope.
Inside was a folded note.
There was also a photograph.
She pulled out the photograph first.
I couldn’t see it clearly from where I stood.
Lauren could.
The color drained from her face.
She gripped the edge of the table.
“Who is this child?”
Mark looked sick.
The baker glanced at me.
I moved closer.
The photograph showed Mark standing beside Tania.
Between them was a little girl.
She looked about three years old.
She had Mark’s eyes.
I knew before anyone said a word.
Lauren knew too.
Her hand flew to her stomach.
“No,” she whispered.
Mark reached toward her.
She recoiled.
“No.”
“Lauren, listen to me.”
“You have a daughter?”
His face crumpled.
“Yes.”
Nobody spoke.
The silence around us became unbearable.
Lauren looked back at the photograph.
“How old is she?”
“Three and a half.”
My stomach turned.
Four years.
Lauren had spent four years trying to become a mother.
Two miscarriages.
Three failed treatments.
And during those same years, Mark had fathered a child with someone else.
Lauren stared at him.
“You cheated on me?”
“Once.”
She laughed.
It wasn’t a happy sound.
“Once? Really?”
“I was drunk. We were fighting all the time. We’d just lost the second pregnancy.”
Lauren’s eyes flashed.
“So I lost our baby, and you slept with someone else?”
“I hated myself for it.”
“Good.”
His mouth closed.
Tears ran down Lauren’s face.
I wanted to pull her into my arms.
I didn’t.
This was her moment.
She needed the space to stand inside it.
She unfolded the note.
