Chapter 1 - THE KISS BEHIND THE CHURCH
“Mom?”
The word came out so quietly I almost didn’t recognize my own voice.
My mother, Diane Mitchell, stood beneath the oak tree with her scarf hanging from my fist.
Ethan’s hand was still around my wrist.
My mother’s lipstick was still smudged at the corner of her mouth.
And behind us, the church bells kept ringing.
For one ridiculous second, I thought maybe I had misunderstood what I had seen.
Maybe she had fallen.
Maybe he had caught her.
Maybe grief or panic or some impossible emergency could explain why my groom had kissed my mother while I waited at the altar.
Then Diane wiped her mouth.
That tiny movement killed every excuse.
I pulled my wrist out of Ethan’s hand.
“How long?”
“Sarah,” Ethan said.
“How long have you been sleeping with my mother?”
Diane flinched.
Ethan looked toward the church.
“Not here.”
I laughed once.
It sounded ugly.
“You left our wedding to kiss my mother, and you’re worried about the location?”
“Please lower your voice.”
That came from Diane.
Not him.
My own mother was asking me not to embarrass her.
Something inside me went very still.
I stepped closer.
“You helped button this dress two hours ago.”
Diane’s eyes filled with tears.
“Sarah, there are things you don’t understand.”
“Then explain the kiss.”
She looked at Ethan.
He looked at her.
That look hurt worse than the kiss.
It was familiar.
Practiced.
A silent conversation they had clearly had before.
I backed away.
Ethan reached for me.
I slapped his hand aside.
“Don’t touch me.”
“Sarah, I swear this is not what you think.”
“That sentence should be illegal.”
A door opened behind the church.
My maid of honor, Rachel, appeared.
“There you are.”
She stopped.
Her smile vanished.
She looked at my mother’s uncovered face.
Then at Ethan.
Then at the bouquet lying in the grass.
“Oh my God.”
Diane quickly pulled the scarf over her hair.
“Rachel, go back inside.”
Rachel stared at her.
“No.”
It was the first useful word anyone had said.
I bent down and picked up my bouquet.
One white rose had snapped at the stem.
I held it for a second.
Then I looked at Ethan.
“You have five minutes.”
His face tightened.
“To do what?”
“To decide whether you want to tell me the truth before I tell two hundred people what I just saw.”
Diane whispered, “Sarah, please.”
I turned toward her.
“You don’t get to ‘please’ me right now.”
I started back toward the church.
Ethan caught up.
“Wait.”
I kept walking.
“There is something you need to know before you go in there.”
I stopped.
Rain clouds were gathering beyond the cemetery.
Ethan’s voice dropped.
“Your mother and I have been meeting for six months.”
My stomach twisted.
Then he added the part I wasn’t ready for.
“But the first time I met her wasn’t six months ago.”
May you like
He looked straight at me.
“It was twenty-seven years ago.”
